London pioneer sites host data challenge

The Waltham Forest, East London and City integrated care pioneer site is hosting a data challenge to demonstrate the benefits of a move towards more joined-up care.

The NHS North and East London Commissioning Support Unit, one of the organisations involved in the integrated care project, says the data challenge will be one of the largest collaborative NHS data exploration events ever held.

Waltham Forest, East London and City is one of 14 integration pioneer sites chosen by the Department of Health to lead the way on integrating health and social care through shared care records and other uses of technology.

The collaborative project is made up of Newham, Tower Hamlets and Waltham Forest councils and clinical commissioning groups, Barts Health NHS Trust, North East London NHS Foundation Trust and East London NHS Foundation Trust, and the UCL Partners academic health science network.

An NHS North and East London CSU spokesperson said the project team is holding the data challenge day on 9 September  to demonstrate the power of joined-up data across health and social care organisations.

The challenge will link together data from almost 200 NHS organisations, including GPs and hospitals, covering a third of London.

The spokeswoman said teams will undertake “hands-on investigation” of the data, with clinicians, data scientists, statisticians, commissioners and care providers among those who will be involved.

All data controllers have authorised the use of their data in a secure environment for the event. The spokesperson said the data has been “carefully anonymised” so no patients can be identified using it.

The CSU is providing analysts for the challenge, with Queen Mary University’s clinical effectiveness group participating along with the member organisations of the project team.

The spokeswoman said insights from the event will be shared with the contributing organisations, “leading to the delivery of better care pathways for patients in east London and more effective commissioning decisions”.

At June’s Health + Care conference in London, care secretary Norman Lamb http://www.ehi.co.uk/news/EHI/9488/lamb-supports-tech-for-integrated-care said the pioneer sites are doing "really fascinating and excellent work”, developing shared care records and using technology to provide a single point of contact for care users.

Lamb said the Department of Health has also been working with the pioneers on the issue of data sharing, in addition to holding workshops with care providers and commissioners to address concerns about how to share information and remove "bureaucratic barriers" to progress.

"Good data and interpretation of that data is what this is all about, so we're not basing decisions in a fog. We have a wealth of data within our system, and that data gives us the chance to operate and make decisions on the basis of evidence," he said.