Turning Data into Intelligence
The NHS generates immense volumes of data every day — across urgent care, primary care, diagnostics, social care, mental health, and beyond. Yet raw data, however abundant, does not drive better care on its own. The real impact comes from transforming this data into intelligence: insights that inform action, predict demand, personalise care, and optimise delivery.
FDP+, the enablement layer on top of the Federated Data Platform (FDP), makes this transformation achievable and scalable. By building on the robust local foundations already established across NHS Trusts and ICBs, FDP+ provides the tools, compute power, governance, and collaboration model necessary for advanced analytics and responsible AI to thrive.
This blog in the FDP+ series explores how Trusts can move from integration to insight and from insight to impact — using the full potential of advanced data science at local and federated levels.
A Platform Built for Insight
FDP+ enables Trusts to use their existing data, tools, and models in new and powerful ways. While the Federated Data Platform provides the structure and security for data access and linkage, FDP+ brings the advanced computing environments, data science enablement, and automation tooling that allow analytics to scale.
Key principles of the FDP+ analytics model include:
- Analyst-first design: Support for Python, R, SQL, DAX, and notebook-based workflows
- Interoperability: Power BI, Tableau, and Excel integration for visualisation
- Scalable compute environments: HPC-ready cloud infrastructure
- Federated analytics: Local models, national insights
- Assurance-ready AI: Bias detection, model validation, and audit.
These principles mean that analysts aren’t forced into unfamiliar tools or locked into rigid models. Instead, they gain access to a new infrastructure that complements and extends their work.
The Analyst Environment: Familiar Tools, Enhanced Power
FDP+ provides a fully featured environment that supports the ways NHS analysts already work. Rather than replace trusted workflows, it accelerates them.
Supported tools include:
- Python for machine learning, data wrangling, and automation
- R for statistical analysis and modelling
- SQL for structured data queries and transformation
- Jupyter Notebooks and RStudio for collaborative coding
- Power BI, Tableau, and Excel for dashboarding and visual storytelling
All tools are delivered within secure, NHS-compliant cloud environments, with options for custom libraries, reusable scripts, and version control.
With CI/CD pipelines and automated deployment tooling, FDP+ enables NHS teams to move beyond ad hoc analysis to reproducible, scalable analytics.
Scalable Computing: From Desktop Limits to Cloud Potential
Many NHS analytics teams today operate within constrained compute environments — desktops, shared servers, or departmental VMs. FDP+ changes that.
Through integration with cloud platforms like Microsoft Azure, FDP+ enables:
- Elastic scaling: Compute power adjusts based on workload
- GPU acceleration: Speed up model training and simulations
- Parallel processing: Large datasets are processed in minutes, not hours
- Data engineering pipelines: Automated transformation and feature extraction
This infrastructure supports large-scale risk modelling, real-time forecasting, image processing, and other advanced use cases — all within a controlled, compliant environment.
Many NHS analytics teams today operate within constrained compute environments — desktops, shared servers, or departmental VMs. FDP+ changes that.
Through integration with cloud platforms like Microsoft Azure, FDP+ enables:
- Elastic scaling: Compute power adjusts based on workload
- GPU acceleration: Speed up model training and simulations
- Parallel processing: Large datasets are processed in minutes, not hours
- Data engineering pipelines: Automated transformation and feature extraction
This infrastructure supports large-scale risk modelling, real-time forecasting, image processing, and other advanced use cases — all within a controlled, compliant environment.
Use Cases in Focus: Turning Possibility Into Practice
FDP+ unlocks a wide range of analytics and AI use cases. Some of the most impactful currently include:
1. Population Health and Preventative Care
- Risk stratification for chronic conditions
- Predictive screening and early intervention modelling
- Cohort identification for targeted outreach
2. Operational Planning and Flow Optimisation
- Real-time demand forecasting across acute services
- Bed utilisation and discharge pathway planning
- Predictive staffing and rota planning
3. Clinical Decision Support
- AI-assisted triage for urgent care
- Natural Language Processing (NLP) for unstructured data
- Personalised care recommendations based on federated datasets
These use cases are not confined to a central team. FDP+ supports cross-disciplinary collaboration — bringing together clinicians, analysts, operational leads, and system partners into shared insight environments.
4. No-Code and NLP: Democratizing Access to Insight
Advanced analytics shouldn’t only be accessible to data scientists. FDP+ includes interfaces and tooling for non-technical users to engage with insights directly:
- No-code dashboard builders for reporting teams
- Natural Language Querying that lets users ask data questions in plain English
- Self-service portals for GPs, commissioners, and managers to generate reports
This increases organisational agility and reduces reliance on centralised reporting cycles. Everyone becomes a user of data — not just a consumer.
5. Real-Time Insight Delivery
FDP+ connects data pipelines with real-time dashboards, automated alerts, and scheduled reporting:
- Daily patient flow dashboards are updated every hour
- Automated escalation alerts for safety or threshold breaches
- Scheduled Power BI reports delivered to inboxes
Combined with federated access controls, insights can be shared securely across partners — from NHS Trusts to local authorities and voluntary sector providers.
Building NHS Capability, Not Outsourcing It
FDP+ is not a black box. It is designed to grow NHS data maturity, not replace it. NHS analysts remain in control of their models, pipelines, and tooling — while gaining access to national datasets, cloud infrastructure, and scalable environments.
FDP+ also supports workforce development by:
- Providing reusable analytics templates and starter kits
- Offering co-designed training environments
- Supporting mentoring between advanced and emerging teams
This builds local capability, increases resilience, and ensures analytics remains a core NHS function.
Integration with Local and National Systems
FDP+ brings together infrastructure, tooling, assurance, and flexibility:
- Continue using local models enhanced by scalable compute
- Leverage new datasets without migrating existing assets
- Deploy predictive models securely and responsibly
- Engage wider users through no-code interfaces
- Share insights across organisations without compromising security
The result is faster time to insight, higher confidence in outcomes, and better decision-making across the system.
Looking Ahead: From Analytics to Impact
As NHS organisations scale their use of FDP+, the potential for impact grows:
- Regional benchmarking of care variation
- Shared AI libraries and national model training
- Accelerated learning systems based on real-time data
This is not just analytics for analytics’ sake. It is analytics for patient care, operational improvement, and strategic planning.
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