A year in review: How the NHSBSA is developing and innovating its data and insight products

As the year draws to a close, it makes me reflect on the work that has been done by the NHS Business Services Authority’s Data and Insight product teams.

Since my last blog, we have produced several key deliverables across all six product teams to transform data into actionable insight, empowering people to make decisions. We are also in the process of setting up a new product team, this will be our seventh team to be formed within a year of establishment of product development capability which just shows the rapid growth and success of our iterative-delivery model.

In this blog, we are going to introduce the exceptional delivery team who are making this possible, as well as provide some highlights on the major deliverables each team has produced over the last few months.

 

ePACT2

I am Rob Rundle and I am the Delivery Manager for ePACT2. Having spent almost two decades working in the utility sector, I chose to pursue an alternative vocation that would provide me with improved job satisfaction and joined NHS Business Services Authority in May 2021.

The vision for ePACT2 is to provide timely and accurate prescriptions data to stakeholders so that they can make informed decisions to improve patient safety and their outcomes. Below are some of the developments and innovations the team has delivered over the last few months:

Enhancements to clinical and medicine value dashboards:

• Respiratory – Developed a new metric that enables the identification of respiratory patients who are being prescribed quantities of prednisolone which might constitute a health risk.
• Antimicrobial Stewardship UTI – Developed metrics in collaboration with NHS England and NHS Improvement to support CCG-led improvements in the management of lower UTI in people aged 70 and over.
• Sodium Valproate – Developed a set of prescribing indicators to track the use of valproate medicines among women of childbearing potential. Valproate prescribing in pregnancy has shown to increase the risk of physical birth defects and neurodevelopmental disorders in unborn babies.
• Polypharmacy – Improved Prescribing comparators will help CCGs and GP practices understand the variation in prescribing of multiple medicines, which in turn will help to identify patients who are more likely to be exposed to the risks that can be associated with taking large numbers, or certain combinations of medicines.
• Children’s Antimicrobial – This allows to get a better understanding of the prescribing of antibiotics to children giving the ability to see variations in prescribing data for various age bands, over time, and between organisations.

 

• Shared Folders – After a successful trial rollout, a new ‘Shared Area’ has been introduced into ePACT2 available in the Catalog area of the system. This was an enhancement that enabled users to share content within the ePACT2 system itself. This means ePACT2 content can be shared with any user who has access to the folder.  

 

• CDR De-coupling – The objective was to decouple all the links of ePACT2 with monthly drug dimension and create a new link with daily drug dimension to enable one source of truth for drug dimensions.  

 

Core Data Warehouse 

I’m John Pinder, and I am the Delivery Manager for the Core Data Warehouse team.  I’ve worked for various NHS organisations over the last 20 years, with the last 16 months in the NHSBSA’s Data and Insight directorate. I am enjoying the challenge of understanding how data can and should be used to provide answers to problems and questions.

The Core Data Warehouse product team improves and maintains the central core functions of the NHSBSA Oracle Data Warehouse, making it easy to onboard and process data from a variety of sources.  The team also provides a Quality Assurance function, ensuring that changes made to the Data Warehouse will be consistent and won’t introduce errors to the system.  Some of the major pieces of work that the team has delivered include:

• Data Integration Service – Introduction of automated data ingestion options using repeatable patterns of data transfer, using Amazon AWS and Microsoft Azure middleware solutions. Also, consolidating the ingestion options in a single package to be used in the Data Warehouse. In conjunction with each other, this will mean less manual intervention required to transfer and ingest data into the Data Warehouse.
• Oracle v19c Upgrade – The Oracle development and production databases were upgraded to v19c to leverage new functionality and help to make cost savings.
• Security Aspects – Further work to improve the security of the database environments, as well as investigating Pseudonymisation and Auditing options.
• Open Data Portal framework – Creation of a framework to handle the transfer of data to the Open Data Portal, making it easier to publish datasets for public consumption.

 

Flex Data Warehouse 

My name is Mark McGhie and I have worked at the NHSBSA for just over 27 years in several roles within Citizen Services and the Contact Centre before I moved to the Data and Insight directorate as a Delivery Manager for Flex Data Warehouse team in April this year.

The Flex team is different to other product teams as we are not working towards a single product deliverable but, as the name suggests, it is a flexible team offering data as a service functionality to several different business areas within the NHSBSA. The team have delivered a number of data ingestion, modelling, and business improvement dashboards to different service users across the NHSBSA. As the year draws to a close, some of our highlights include:

• DIS Onboarding – Onboarding data using the new Data Integration Service automated feed and creation of reporting layers which allow the business areas to have visibility and to report on the data in a timelier manner and with minimal manual intervention.
• Data Dictionary – Setting up the data dictionary for each business area to allow information analysts to easily identify data items and their purpose. This allows consistency and a more efficient process across the business. The business areas we are currently working with are English Infected Blood Support Service (EIBSS), Overseas Health Service (OHS), Pensions, Citizen Services and Workforce Services.

 

eDEN and eOPS 

My name is James Burridge and I am the Delivery Manager for eDEN and eOPS teams. I previously worked in various development roles before I moved to delivery. I am fairly new to the Data and Insight team as I joined at the start of November.

The Dental and Ophthalmic product teams produce reports and analysis via the eDEN and eOPS solutions to help drive and inform decisions for several customers. We aim to be a one-stop shop for primary care data, enabling customers to work with insight on a day-to-day basis. We want to enable all dentistry and ophthalmic professionals to incorporate eDEN and eOPS into their core working day.

 

Dental

• NHS England Quarterly Reports – These reports are additional dashboards that support commissioners and allow them to self-serve reports.
• Reports for Welsh Government – Created a new raw data dashboard for Welsh Government to enable self-service of data sources.
• OAC Reporting – Restructured OAC reporting dashboards for Clinical Advisor Reporting and CRR All Claims, enabling a more streamlined release process and mitigation for error while transferring new analysis.
• Provider Assurance Reporting – Revamped reporting for Provider Assurance. This solved technical issues with the previous reporting system and expanded the scope to further meet the user needs of Clinical Advisors.

 

Optometry

• Master Practice List – Working with NHSEI on the Master Practice list to link Open Exeter and eGOS datasets together to give one dashboard reporting tool to use. This will allow for paper and electronic-based submission to the service to be linked giving a historical perspective of submission for the service which are easily viewed.
• Risk-Based Sampling – Implemented risk-based sampling of the data, this will allow the dataset to be analysed for reasons such as patient safety.
• Claims Level Data – Worked on claims level data to help enable review of data and case management. 
• New Data Set Analysis – Investigation in progress on the new data set from NHSE which may allow for paper and electronic-based submission to the service to be linked.  This will allow for legacy submissions to be properly catalogued and included in the eOPS data set.

 

GP Survey Reporting 

I am Vanitha Jayaraman. I have over 20 years of experience in project management and delivery across several private and public sectors. I previously worked as the Delivery Manager for ePACT2 and now work as the Delivery Manager for GP Survey Reporting.

In the 2019 manifesto, 50,000,000 additional GP appointments were promised to improve access to General Practice, patient experience, and patient outcomes.

To measure that these improvements are being delivered, and to contribute to future incentivisation for GPs through the Investment and Impact Fund (IIF), NHS England and Improvement is required to deliver a Patient Experience Measure. The Patient Experience Measure will capture and measure aspects of a patient’s experience of a health care appointment with their General Practice in as close to real-time as possible.

• GP Survey Summary Dashboard – Released GP Survey Summary Dashboard to NHSE in OAC using secure access. This helps NHSE to see improvements in patient measures for GP surgeries.
• Monthly Summary Reporting – Implemented delivery of monthly summary reports for 60+ trail GP practice groups. These reports help them understand patient feedback in order to look at improvements within their GP practice.
• Weekly Feedback Reports – Implemented delivery of weekly GP Survey feedback reports for NHSE which helps to understand survey feedback and provides an opportunity to tailor it based on user needs.

 

Provider Assurance 

My name is Mark McQuade and I joined Data and Insight as a Delivery Manager last month. Having worked at the NHSBSA in a training and recruitment role for almost three years, a transition to Data and Insight was daunting, but also very exciting and I’m really embracing the different ways of working.

We are currently forming a new product team for Provider Assurance. It is very much an exciting time for me and the team and we’re all looking forward to making a real difference in supporting the NHSBSA vision of being the delivery partner of choice for the NHS. More news on this exciting new piece of work will be available in our next blog!