The contract award will see investment over the course of seven years as more trusts join the platform . In the first contract year , investment is expected to be at least £ 25.6m . Over the contractual period of seven years , there will be up to £ 330m investment in the Federated Data Platform and associated services .

This new tool provides a safe and secure environment to bring together data .

No company involved in the Federated Data Platform can access health and care data without the explicit permission of the NHS . All data within the platform is under the control of the NHS and will only be used for direct care and planning . It will not be used to access data for research purposes and GP data will not feed into the national version of the software platform .

Pilot projects using the new data-sharing approach have seen a drop in waiting times for planned care and in discharge delays and seen faster diagnosis and treatment times . Since introducing the system , North Tees and Hartlepool Trust has reduced long term stays ( 21 days or more ) by 36 % despite increased demand , with 7.7 % more patients being admitted to the hospital .

NHS National Director for Transformation , Dr Vin Diwakar , said : “ Better use of data is essential for the NHS to tackle waiting times , join up patient care and

www . intelligentcio . com INTELLIGENTCIO EUROPE 47