The Strategy aims to reshape health and social care through more effective use of data, increased trust from the public in health data provision, leveraging technologies to allow better access to care records for patients and ultimately, swifter treatment and improved patient outcomes.

Some of the key tenets of the Strategy include:

• Improving trusts in the health system’s use of data
• Providing information to health professionals on how to use data
• Improving adult social care via enhanced data utilisation
• Supporting local and national decision-makers with data
• Empowering researchers to access data needed for innovative medicines and diagnostics
• Developing the right technical infrastructure.

The Strategy feeds off the work carried out in the Goldacre Review which made a compelling case for how data can drive innovation and improve healthcare. It also addresses the potential for data within the new ICS structuring affecting the NHS.

Commitments included in the plan include:

• Public guides on how patient data is sourced and utilised
• A robust accreditation regime to ensure high standards for how secure data environments are implemented
• Embedding the information Governance Portal as the one-stop shop for help and guidance for health professionals
• Development of a national information governance transformation plan, focusing on practical data-sharing situations, creating professional standards and addressing training for frontline staff
• Ensuring that each integrated care system has a basic shared care record in place to enable sharing of key information between GP practices and NHS trusts
• Creating a workforce observatory, including an annual census, to inform how to better harness the professional skills of analysts and data managers, engineers and scientists, and support their professional learning and development.
• An online Analytics Hub, working with AnalystX, to share, promote and endorse training, events and other resources aimed at analysts and non-analysts across all career levels.
• Partnerships between academic researchers, charities, patient advocacy groups, industry and analytical teams to enhance the exchange of skills and knowledge.
• Bringing together genomics data, and work with NHSEI to ensure genomic data generated through clinical care is fed back into patients’ records
• Working with other countries and the World Health Organization (WHO) to facilitate the implementation of the World Health Assembly resolution on strengthening clinical trials to provide high-quality evidence on health interventions and to improve research quality and coordination, and supporting, as appropriate, the development of a WHO progress report by the 76th World Health Assembly.
• A digital playbook will be made on how to open source your code for health and care organisations. Guidance on where to put the code, how to license and maintain it, and best practice for working with suppliers will be published in addition to case studies of teams who have done this.
• Making available up to £100 million of funding available through the AI in Health and Care Award to accelerate the testing and evaluation of AI technologies.
• A target data architecture for health and social care outlining how and where data will be stored and accessed, starting with health (July 2022) and then followed by social care (September 2022).

Please consult the Government page on the Strategy for more detailed information of the Strategy’s commitments and a glossary of terms.