NHS: Databases
(asked on 19th June 2026) - View Source
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether an Equality Impact Assessment has been completed for the Inpatient and Outpatient Care Co-ordination Solution products used through the NHS Federated Data Platform to flag patients for removal from elective waiting lists.
The NHS Federated Data Platform (NHS FDP) safely connects information from different systems across the National Health Service into a single, secure environment. This allows staff to co-ordinate care better to improve outcomes for patients.
The NHS FDP is delivering for the NHS, helping people get the care they need quicker and more efficiently. Since March 2024, more than 100,000 additional patients have been supported to undergo procedures in theatres partly by increasing theatre utilisation. Nearly 94,000 people have been supported on their cancer journey, with 7% seeing a reduction in the time it took to diagnose their cancer. There has been a 14% decrease in delays discharging patients staying in hospital for more than seven days, freeing up beds for those who need them most. NHS England publishes quarterly information on benefits realised from the FDP, which is available at the following link:
As of the end of May 2026, 170 trusts have signed up for the NHS FDP, including Nottingham University Hospital NHS Trust.
There is no statutory requirement to complete a formal Equality Impact Assessment for individual digital products. However, the Department and NHS England are subject to the Public Sector Equality Duty under the Equality Act 2010 and must have due regard to the need to reduce inequalities and advance equality of opportunity in the exercise of their functions.
Equality considerations are factored into the design, governance, and deployment of the NHS FDP. Products delivered through the platform are subject to robust clinical safety, information governance, and assurance processes.
NHS organisations are responsible for the local use of these tools, including ensuring that decisions on elective waiting list management are clinically led and take appropriate account of equality considerations for their populations.
Equality Impact Assessments are undertaken where required as part of established NHS governance processes. Responsibility for completing such assessments sits with the relevant data controller, which is NHS England for the national instance and individual trusts and integrated care boards for their local use of the platform.