The aims of the Federated Data Platform (FDP)
Every day, NHS staff and clinicians are delivering care in new and innovative ways, achieving better outcomes for patients, and driving efficiency. Scaling and sharing these innovations across the health and care system in England is a key challenge for the NHS.
Harnessing the power of digital, data and technology is the key to recovering from the pandemic, addressing longer-term challenges, and delivering services in new and more sustainable ways.
The future of our NHS depends on improving how we use data to:
- care for our patients;
- improve population health;
- plan and improve services; and
- find new ways to deliver services.
The Federated Data Platform (FDP)
A ‘Data platform’ refers to software which will enable NHS organisations to bring together Data – currently stored in separate systems – to support staff to access the information they need in one safe and secure environment so that they are better able to coordinate, plan and deliver high quality care.
A ‘federated’ Data platform means that every NHS Trust and Integrated Care Board (ICB) (on behalf of the Integrated Care System (ICS)) will have their own platform which can connect and collaborate with other Data platforms as a “federation” making it easier for health and care organisations to work together.
A digitised, connected NHS can deliver services more effectively and efficiently, with people at the centre, leading to:
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Better outcomes and experience for people
A more efficient NHS ultimately means a better service for patients, reduced waiting times and more timely treatment. The platform will provide ICBs with the insights they need to understand the current and future needs of their populations so they can tailor early preventative interventions and target health and care support. Patients will have more flexibility and choice about how and where they access services and receive care, helping them to stay healthy for longer.
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Better experience for staff
NHS staff will be able to access the information they need in one secure place. This reduces the time they spend chasing referrals, scheduling appointments, and waiting for test results and allows them to work more flexibly to deliver high quality care for their patients.
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Connecting the NHS
The connectivity of the platforms is extremely important as it will enable us to rapidly scale and share tools and applications that have been developed at a local level – in a secure way – supporting levelling up and reducing variation across England.
Federation means that each Trust and ICB has a separate Instance of the platform for which they are the Controller. Access for each Instance will be governed and managed by each individual organisation.
We want the NHS to be the best insight-driven health and care system in the world. This software will provide the foundation to improve the way that Data is managed and used across the NHS in England to transform services and save lives.
The FDP will not only provide the cutting-edge software to Trusts and ICBs to continue to innovate but the connectivity will enable NHS England (NHSE) to rapidly scale and share innovative solutions that directly addresses the challenges most pressing for the NHS. This will transform the way the NHS delivers its services enabling organisations to communicate and collaborate more effectively and provide better care for patients.
Purpose
The Federated Data Platform (FDP) is a series of separate data platforms which we call “Instances”. There are data platform Instances which are operated by NHS England, called the “National Instance” and the "National Data Integration Tenant (NDIT)". There are separate data platform Instances which are operated by NHS Trusts or Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) in a local area, which we call “Local Instances”. Each Instance is owned by the individual Data Controller Organisation and all Data held within their Instance remains their responsibility.
An organisation that has an Instance of FDP may host another organisations Tenant within their Instance. The host organisation will have no access or controllership of this "Hosted Tenant".
These National and Local Instances of the data platform work alongside Privacy Enhancing Technology, which we call “NHS-PET”. NHS-PET records the data which is used in data platform Instances and can de-identify data where this is needed.
Each Instance of the data platform uses the same underlying technology and software and has the same basic technical functionality. However, the data platform uses the technology, software, and functionality in different ways for different purposes through what we call “Products”.
For more information on the products utilised within Kent Community Health NHS Foundation Trust, please visit the relevant notice from our navigation bar at the side of this page.