We are delighted to have been selected by The Health Foundation, an independent charity, to be part of its Advancing Applied Analytics programme, which aims to improve analytical capability in support of health and care services.

The programme is supporting 11 project teams in the UK that are working on local, innovative, ambitious projects, to help them demonstrate the value of improving analytical capability in health and care services. Each project will run for up to 15 months and will start by October 2018.

Hosted and run by Care City, in collaboration with health and council teams in Barking and Dagenham, the project aims to use a linked dataset to create a deeper understanding of social isolation and troubled families, areas of particular concern for the local council and health services, and to identify opportunities for improved partnership working between health and social care.

We will bring together a local community of analysts across health and council teams, creating a peer network, and provide enhanced learning, to work together on this exciting project.

Jenny Shand, a Director at UCLPartners and Care City said, “Analytics teams in health and council organisations are often focused on internal analysis and reporting to fulfil organisational and national requirements. However, these analysts have great insights which could be explored through both the use of connected datasets and advanced statistical techniques. We intend to give local analysts an opportunity to develop their skills and work collaboratively on a unique linked dataset. This will in turn give us a more complete understanding of service use, population characteristics and behaviours and therefore help target solutions to tackle the issues of social isolation and troubled families that we have in Barking”.

Martin Bardsley, Senior Fellow at the Health Foundation, said: “We know from our report Understanding analytical capability in health care the importance of improving the way we use information and analysis in the NHS. It is widely acknowledged that health care services cannot access the right type of analysis or make the best use of data that already exist, never mind take advantage of new data streams and methods that are becoming possible.

“This is the second round of our Advancing Applied Analytics programme and we have selected 11 exciting local projects that will demonstrate how better analysis can lead to better health and care. In particular these projects will address the capability deficiencies that exist, and provide lessons for the wider health and care system. We look forward to working with the project teams to highlight the value of analytical skills and explore the best ways that they can be delivered.”