A small group of NHS and private healthcare organisations have been selected for a pilot of a national programme to align data from the sectors.
Six have been named as the first to take part in ADAPt, which is jointly led by NHS Digital and the Private Healthcare Information Network (PHIN) and aimed at creating the first comprehensive national dataset of ‘whole practice’ information for doctors and hospitals.
The private patient unit of the London North West University NHS Foundation Trust is take part with Epsomedical, Genesis, HCA Healthcare, Schoen Clinic and Spire Healthcare.
The ADAPt pilots will test the technical changes and governance requirements needed to transfer the collection of private admitted patient data from PHIN into NHS Digital.
The organisation said it aims to make the new national dataset available through its data sharing services to regulators and public bodies to support safety monitoring and service improvements. It will also share the data with PHIN to support the legal requirement to publish whole practice performance measures for hospitals and consultants offering private healthcare.
Vital step
Matt James, chief executive of PHIN, said: “It is great to have reached the operational testing stage of this very important partnership programme, and we're grateful to the hospitals that have volunteered to participate, particularly during the challenges of the ongoing pandemic. This is a vital step in moving towards a more joined up approach to managing healthcare data and will lead to significant improvements in the use of information to promote patient safety.
“We hope that these pilots will enable ADAPt to become fully operational in 2022.”
Fran Woodward, executive director of data services at NHS Digital, said: “We are pleased that the first pilot sites are ready to take part in the ADAPt programme and improve patient safety through a more joined up approach between the NHS and private sector.
“This is an important step on the road to recommendations for rolling out the sharing of in-patient hospital data across the healthcare system and we look forward to analysing the first results from these pilots.”
Image from iStock, Magical Equipment
