Two thirds of ICBs have now signed up to the Federated Data Platform (FDP), software which allows the sharing of data across NHS organisations.
In an update published by NHS England, it said that a total of 28 ICBs have now signed up, along with 87 acute hospital trusts in England.
NHS England would not disclose which ICBs had signed up, but did confirm that the ICB sign ups were separate statistics.
The FDP platform, which collates data including the number of beds in hospital, the size of elective waiting lists, staff rosters and the availability of social care places, had an initial transition phase between March and May 2024, and is expected to be rolled out across the health service between May 2024 and March 2027.
It aims to help ICBs to proactively plan services that meet the needs of their local population.
In June, NHS England published a quarterly update which suggested that there were 39 trusts at the time using the FDP, 34 of which were named by NHS England (see map).
Of these trusts, 33 were using the software for inpatients care coordination, which flags entries in the waiting list for further investigation. The trusts were using this across 15 total treatment specialities.
NHS England said that hospital trusts using the FDP each treated an average 114 more inpatients in theatres every month since implementing the tool, with around 68,000 patients requested for removal from the waitlist due to the inpatient tool.
The FDP also allows for an outpatients care coordination tool, which also flags entries in the waiting list for further investigation. Teams can identify which patient entries no longer need to be included, for example if they have died or there are duplicate entries. As of June 2024, there were 14 trusts using this tool, with over 200,000 patients requested to be removed from the waiting list as a result.
A further nine trusts are also using the tool for referral to treatment validation which provides near-real time list of patients on a waiting list that all clinicians can access and view.
NHS England said teams using this can identify delays in patient pathways and provide pre-procedure checks and post-care assessment activities, which aims to improve efficiency.
However, the FDP has been the subject of controversy among GPs and the wider NHS, with confusion about whether primary care data would or would not be included in the platform.
Before the election, the now health secretary Wes Streeting said the rollout of the FDP had been ‘too permissive’ and ‘lazy’.
The platform is supplied by a consortium led by tech company Palantir, which includes Accenture, PWC, Carnall Farrar and NECS. It was awarded the £330m seven-year contract in November 2023 following a procurement process.
In February, legal proceedings against NHS England were launched by law campaigners in a bid to 'uncover' the contents of the contract, which resulted in an updated contract being published in March with fewer redactions.
The BMA and its GP committee also previously expressed concerns over the high value of the contract and particularly how confidential patient data will be used.
On the progress of the rollout, Ming Tang, chief data and analytics officer at NHS England, said: ‘The NHS Federated Data Platform boosts efficiency and speeds up care and I’m delighted that over 100 NHS organisations have already signed up to use the service in its first year.
‘Its many benefits include the ability to identify those on waiting lists for longest, highlighting issues that could lead to on the day cancellations of procedures, showing when operating theatres are lying empty and speeding up discharges so patients get home faster.
‘Hospital trusts using the tool are seeing dozens more patients each month and we’re working with NHS organisations to bring these benefits to as many more patients as possible.’
In June, a report suggested that inconsistent data infrastructure across ICSs in England was risking quality of care an increasing inequalities, and that there was an administrative burden on ICSs due to multiple instances of patient data across systems.
Earlier this month, a report suggested that a central system allowing access to GP data for research was England's 'highest data priority'.
