Data chiefs raise concerns about NHS federated data platform

The Chief Data and Analytics Officers Network (CDAON) has questioned whether the NHS federated data platform (FDP) is capable of supporting local health systems.

An open letter to Ming Tang, chief data and analytics officer at NHS England, from Dr Marc Farr, chair of the CDAON and national chair of the Association of Professional Healthcare Analysts (AphA), raises several concerns about the platform.

The NHSE 2025/26 priorities and operational planning guidance, published on 30 January 2025, mandates that all systems adhere to the ‘FDP first’ policy, connecting their own digital and data infrastructure to the FDP. It adds that NHSE will support adoption of the FDP to 85% of all secondary care trusts by March 2026.

In the open letter, dated 20 February 2025, Farr writes: “A nationally commissioned platform (FDP) will not be able to meet all the bespoke requirements of a local system to support the health of its citizens through better data and intelligence.

“This is best done through locally designed and managed infrastructure and CDAOs and other partners across the system are in discussion with a range of government departments about how best to integrate wider public service data at a system level.”

He also highlights concerns that the FDP programme is promoting “the adoption of specific tools or modules on a single software platform” as opposed to the integration of data and interoperability.

Farr, who is chief analytical officer at Kent and Medway Integrated Care Board (ICB), says that the CDAON is “fully supportive of the need” for an FDP solution, but adds that many ICBs “already have similar tools in use that presently exceed the capability and application of what the FDP is currently trying to develop or roll out at a system level”.

He also raises the issue of gaining public trust around the use sensitive data.

“This relationship of trust with our citizens requires constant and careful attention and we receive regular expressions of interest and concern about health data use including specifically the extent of our engagement with FDP and its supplier(s),” he writes.

Farr told Digital Health News: “The Goldacre Review and the NHSE Data Saves Lives strategy set out the huge opportunities of linking data for population health management, research and planning and evidence shows that the public are overwhelmingly behind this as long as it’s done securely and transparently.”

He added that it is “critical” that NHSE engages with the professional analyst body on how to recognise and make plans for existing infrastructure which already federate data and how these work alongside the FDP; to make sure that data and code is shareable into and out of the FDP and to recognise the nuance of linking in local data in an agile manner.

Also he said that NHSE must provide investment in the analyst function and put the analyst community at the heart of the design and evaluation of the FDP.

Commenting on the open letter, Sam Smith, coordinator for patient privacy campaign group, MedConfidential, told Digital Health News: “Patients should know how data is used and their wishes should be respected.”