The opportunity to use data to transform the NHS

CHN and The Kings Fund jointly hosted Tim Ferris, Director of Transformation at NHS England and NHS Improvement on 29th March.

Tim focused his talk on the potential of data and analytics to improve outcomes for populations, quality and productivity of care. 

He talked about four key sources of data (EPR, Path and imaging, registries, genomics) and four key uses of data (clinical care, population health management, planning, research).

The following discussion was broad ranging and covered:

• the great things happening around the country/NHS
• the opportunities from scaling these innovations/changes
• the need to focus on opportunities rather than barriers
• the need for a clear (succinct) strategy which you can communicate in an elevator
• the importance of both ensuring stakeholder agency AND of executive decision making
• the potential to use data already captured in clinical registries and the potential to publish outcomes data as it is in the US
• the potential to use ambient technology/NLP to support GPs (and other clinicians)

The discussion ended with Tim agreeing to come back in a year and share an update!