In attendance
Members in attendance
- Director of Data and Analytics, Deputy Chief Data and Analytics Officer, NHS England Chair
- Head of Information Governance, FDP, NHS England Commercial Director, IQVIA
- Deputy Director, Product Development and Implementation, NHS England
- Regional Director of Digital Transformation – Midlands, NHS England
- Director of Advanced Analysis, Data and Analytics, NHS England
- Chief Technology Officer, North of England Commissioning Support Unit
- Regional Director of Digital Transformation – East of England, NHS England
- Principal Accountant, NHS England
- Deputy Director, Demand and Delivery, NHS England Chief Medical Officer, Kent Community Trust
- Senior Commercial Lead, NHS England Director of Delivery, Palantir
- Director of Transformation and Quality Improvement, University Hospitals of Northamptonshire
Terms of reference members
- Portfolio Director, NHS England
- Assistant Director FDP Programme Management Office (PMO), NHS England
- Governance Secretariat Officer, NHS England
In attendance (presenters/ad hoc)
- Director (Data and Analytics), NHS England
- Assistant Director Product Development – Use Case-Elective
- FDP Corporate and Governance Compliance Manager, NHS England
- Lead Product Manager – Elective Recovery (Cancer360 and Shared PTL), NHS England
Apologies
- Deputy Chief Operating Officer and Director of Digital Operations, Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust
- Medical Productivity Director, NHS England
- Deputy Managing Director, North of England Commissioning Support Unit
- Assistant Head of Communications, Transformation Directorate, NHS England
- Regional Chief Operating Officer, Midlands, NHS England
- Joint Chief Digital Officer, Nottingham and Nottinghamshire Integrated Care System, Derby and Derbyshire Integrated Care System
- Executive Director, Strategy Change and In Hospital Services, NHS Supply Chain, NHS England
- Director of Privacy, Transparency and Ethics, NHS England
- Programme Management Director, IQVIA
- Director of Data Management and Transformation, NHS England
- Head of Procurement, Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust
- National Medical Director for Secondary Care, Consultant Vascular and General Surgeon, NHS England
1. Welcome and Introductions
The chair welcomed Federated Data Platform (FDP) Programme Board members to the meeting. Apologies were noted.
2. Declarations of interest
The chair asked members to declare any interests. No new interests were declared.
3. Review of actions
The Chair guided the group through a review of the open actions and progress was noted. There were no objections to the closure of actions.
There were no comments raised on the minutes of the last meeting, held on 7 July 2025.
4. Decisions made
The assistant director of FDP PMO summarised the decisions made since the last Programme Board meeting on 7 July 2025.
5. FDP highlight report
The Assistant Director of FDP PMO provided an overview of the FDP highlight report, including the number of trusts signed up, product deployments and programme risks.
As of 28 July, a total of 121 acute trusts and 16 non-acute trusts have formally signed up to implement the FDP via a memorandum of understanding and the relevant information governance documentation. A total of 94 acute trusts were live/in delivery.
The PMO lead highlighted the tracking of key performance indicators and noted that quarter 1 benefits would be published going forward.
Board Members discussed incident reporting. It was noted that the FDP and NHS England service management team conducted thorough work each time any incident was reported. This included the completion of a root cause analysis in the case of any major incident.
Action: deputy director – Federated Data Platform (service integration), to provide Board members with details of any major incidents recorded on FDP since August 2024.
The Chair advised Board members that a full benefits realisation strategy had been put in place for Optica. It was agreed that benefits reporting should include incubated products to ensure a comprehensive benefits management strategy.
Action: incubated products to be included in future benefits reporting.
NHS England Programme workstream highlights: the assistant director of FDP PMO highlighted the increase in correspondence and enquires. Contacts and freedom of information requests had increased at both the programme and local trust level. FDP PMO was available to assist with support where needed.
Workstream overview: the workstream overview was noted with 60% of workstreams reporting a green RAG rating, 40% were reporting as amber and no workstreams reporting a red rating.
Programme risk profile: the programme’s risk profile had been shared with the Gateway review team. Risks discussed included the need to develop the product pipeline, reliance on incubation sites, increased national product requests, and the impact of clinical commissioning unit resource closure. Mitigation plans were in place for these risks.
A deep dive of the Centre of Excellence would be undertaken, aiming to build a robust system for user confidence and skills, supporting the transition to business as usual. This would be brought to a future Programme Board meeting.
In response to a question raised regarding the Centre of Excellence (COE), the deputy director of demand and delivery explained that 2 parallel activities were underway for the COE: building a curriculum to help users use FDP more effectively; and designing the COE’s architecture to make information more accessible and workflows easier.
Making the COE meaningful for builders was important and the ongoing work to improve the look and content was noted. Board Members were invited to a session to learn more about the COE.
The Programme Board noted the rest of the highlight report.
6. FDP demand and delivery update
The deputy director, Demand and Delivery, NHS England provided an update on trust engagement, highlighting the increase in memorandums of understanding (MOUs) signed and the focus on winter preparedness. He reported that the team were ahead on retrofit deployments.
There had been an increase in MOUs signed, with 137 MOUs signed. There were currently 94 trusts in delivery. Several trusts had now turned their focus to winter preparedness, and support would be offered on how FDP could assist with this. The target was for 115 trusts realising benefits by the end of this year, with a plan to have 113 trusts by the end of the current quarter.
The chair stressed the importance of building a robust pipeline for the next 2 years. The pipeline would include community and mental health trusts as well as acute trusts. This would help FDP to contribute towards the delivery of the 10 Year Plan.
The deputy director, Demand and Delivery, NHS England highlighted the success of an Epic workshop in London. This had resulted in a commitment from Epic trusts to leverage the Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust Epic work. He was also working with the Product Development team to look at support for cancer patients with the cancer alliance.
The Demand and Delivery team were also actively promoting the Health Decision Suite (HDS) capability across 20 trusts, highlighting enhancements of analytics, performance and reporting. A session had been held with the South West regional team and the deputy director, Demand and Delivery, NHS England would look to hold similar sessions with the East of England regional team.
Action: deputy director, Demand and Delivery, NHS England to present an overview of Health Decision Suite capabilities at the next regional director of transformation session.
Action: the regional directors of digital transformation for East of England and for Midlands to discuss HDS with their trusts with an aim to build pipelines.
The Programme Board noted the demand and delivery update including the regional status reports.
7 FDP product update
Board members received a product update, illustrating the current position on core products and emerging products. The deputy director, Product Development and Implementation, NHS England summarised the progress of national delivery and product updates, including 10 emerging products and the move of Cancer 360 to be 1 of 5 products generally available. This marked a significant milestone for the programme.
The meeting discussed the National primary care dashboard. The Programme Board noted that there was no primary care data flowing into any part of FDP. The National primary care dashboard used other sources of information. Current legislation ensured that local GP data sits with integrated care boards and NHS England had no rights to this data. There was no expectation of any inclusion of GP data in the national instance and this would not be in accordance with the law.
Consideration would be given to any requests on how the programme could assist primary care, however no arrangements were currently in place and no national identifiable data was used in the national tenant. The importance of clarity on this point was noted and it was agreed that PMO should review minutes to ensure accuracy.
Action: PMO to review minutes regarding GP data to ensure there is clarity that no patient identifiable data is used in the national FDP tenant.
The Programme Board noted the update.
8. FDP Shared Patient Tracking List Product overview
The assistant director Product – Elective Recovery Use Case Federated Data and the Elective Recovery (Cancer360 and Shared PTL) presented the Shared Patient Tracking List (Shared PTL), highlighting its functionality and the ongoing pilots with Northampton and Bath.
Board Members noted positive feedback which had been shared on the tool’s impact on managing elective waiting lists. Further engagement with the patient engagement portal team and Wayfinder team to explore integration opportunities in the Shared PTL product was discussed.
The Programme Board noted the presentation.
9 Outpatients Reimagined overview
Board members were provided with an overview of the ‘Outpatients Reimagined’ initiative. The aim was to improve the outpatient journey through digital solutions, with a focus on shifting care earlier and preventing unnecessary outpatient appointments. The initiative was fully aligned with, and would help to deliver, the vision set out in the 10 Year Plan.
The deputy director, Product Development and Implementation, NHS England described breaking down the outpatient journey into 6 key stages, identifying digital solutions for each, and targeting areas for pilot work.
Board members discussed opportunities for expanding the scope of the work, the importance of linking with community and population health models, and the need for ongoing updates to the Programme Board. There was consensus on involving clinicians early and sharing progress regularly.
Action: an update on Outpatients Reimagined to be provided to alternate Programme Board meetings.
The Programme Board noted the presentation.
10 Gateway outcome report
The Assistant Director of FDP PMO updated the Programme Board on FDP’s successful performance and ‘green’ rating in the recent Gateway review. A ‘green’ rating demonstrated that FDP had shown itself to be delivering and was highly likely to continue to succeed. The Programme had provided evidence of successful delivery to time, that cost and quality aims appeared highly likely and that there were no major outstanding issues that appeared to threaten delivery.
The review by the National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority had investigated the programme’s readiness to make the transition from specification/solution to implementation and to ‘go live’. Board members noted the areas of outstanding practice by FDP which had been highlighted by the review. These included the implementation of the Operations Centre (noted as ‘commendable’) and the product development and roadmap process (found to be ‘exemplary’).
The chair noted that the achievement of a ‘green’ rating by the FDP team was a significant achievement. The rating and review feedback represented an endorsement for how the Programme had been operated. He expressed his pride in the performance of the whole FDP team, both those on the meeting call and those working on a day-to- day basis to deliver. The chair thanked everyone on the Programme who strived to deliver daily.
The Programme Board noted the presentation.
11. Any other business and close
There was no other business for discussion.
The meeting concluded
Date of next meeting: 28 August 2025
Completed by: PMO secretariat
Reviewed by: senior PMO secretariat
Confirmed by: meeting chair