Today, NHS England announced that, following an open and competitive procurement, it has awarded a group led by Palantir Technologies UK, with support from Accenture, PwC, NECS and Carnall Farrar, the contract to provide the new NHS Federated Data Platform (FDP).
The NHS manages data in different systems that do not connect effectively or efficiently. Every day, clinicians and other hospital staff spend time on the phone and in meetings, trying to join this information up themselves—to manage their theatre lists, waiting lists and information on patients ready to be discharged. This time could be better spent caring for patients.
The FDP is software that will sit across NHS trusts and integrated care systems (ICSs), allowing them to connect data they already hold, such as health records, waiting lists, and theatre and staff rosters, in a safe and secure environment, to better manage patient care. The FDP will support key priorities of the NHS, including recovery of elective care and the improvement of discharge processes to get medically fit patients treated and home quicker.
The safety and security of patient data is front and centre of this new system. As happens currently, there will be clear rules and auditability covering who can access this data, what they can see, and what they can do. Only authorised users will be granted access to data for approved purposes—for example, NHS staff and those supporting them, such as administrators, bed managers or care co-ordinators, and staff in social care supporting the move from hospital care. The provider of the software will not hold or have access to NHS data for any purpose, other than as directed by the NHS; they will not control the data in the platform, nor will they be permitted to access, use or share it for their own purposes. The contract makes strict stipulations about confidentiality. No new data will be collected, and GP data will not be part of the national platform.
In addition, NHS England has awarded a contract to a separate provider, IQVIA, for privacy enhancing technology, as an additional safeguard to enhance the security of data used in the FDP. The FDP will not go live at trusts or ICSs until this privacy enhancing technology is in place.
Across England, 26 trusts have been piloting what the FDP will provide. Clinicians have described the results as “game-changing”. It has helped them to better organise their clinics and waiting lists by integrating and consolidating data from different hospital systems or by creating a single list of information used by everyone working in health and care on discharge of patients from hospital. Patients in these vanguard trusts have seen falls in waiting times, discharge delays reduce, and diagnoses speed up. Theatre utilisation has increased by more than 6%, meaning an average of 120 additional patients per month are being treated at each trust. A new discharge tool has allowed one trust to reduce unnecessary days in hospital for long-stayers by 36% and halve the number of patients occupying a hospital bed for 21 days or more, compared with the England average.
It is these real benefits that an FDP will bring for patients and clinicians that have seen the chief executives of all 42 integrated care boards sign up to an open statement of support for the procurement.
Every hospital and integrated care board will have its own version of the platform which can connect and collaborate with other data platforms as a “federation”. In the first contract year, investment is expected to be at least £25.6 million and over the total contractual period of seven years, there will be up to £330 million investment in the Federated Data Platform and associated services. Learning about how to make the roll-out to trusts as efficient as possible will be built in overtime to reduce costs.
Additional funding has been set aside for other organisations to bid in separate, future procurements to build new products on to the platform that are interoperable and provide the opportunity for the NHS to benefit from new innovations from a range of suppliers. This makes it easier for health and care organisations to work together, compare data, analyse it at different geographic, demographic and organisational levels, and share and spread new effective digital solutions.
The contract will not only benefit users of the NHS; it will see investment in the UK-based data industry: the contract includes the creation by the supplier of a hub in the north-west. Data will not leave the UK.
Contract award for the FDP is the first stage of the process. An advisory group made up of expert health and care stakeholders, as well as patients and regional system representatives, will help to shape how the FDP is implemented. NHS England has already carried out engagement on the FDP requirements, including with patient and professional representative bodies. Ongoing public engagement is planned throughout the period of the contract, including as part of a recently announced circa £2 million national programme of engagement on the use of health data.
Further information on the FDP can be found on NHS England’s webpages at:
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