The NHS Federated Data Platform (NHS FDP) has been brought in by NHS England to securely bring together operational data stored in digital systems used by NHS organisations.
It aims to enhance patient care and increase efficiency by securely connecting data, breaking down silos and providing insights to assist in decision-making, reduce costs and improve patient outcomes.
The recently published NHS England Medium Term Planning Framework – Delivering Change Together 2026/27 to 2028/29 requires all healthcare providers in acute, community and mental health sectors – including Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust – and Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) to use the NHS FDP. Each provider will have their own instance of the NHS FDP which they control from a data perspective, connecting and sharing data in accordance with data protection laws and data sharing agreements.
OPTICA
At CUH, we are working with our regional healthcare partners to use OPTICA, which is part of the NHS FDP, to support complex patient discharges. This will help to deliver the best care to our patients through national publicly funded systems as part of the NHS FDP:
- reduce average length of stay and minimise avoidable delayed discharges
- enable health and social care teams in our region to collaborate about each patient’s discharge arrangements
- highlight areas of delay and offer practical insights by thoroughly monitoring patient progress.
OPTICA (Optimised Patient Tracking & Intelligent Choices Application) is a secure cloud application, built by NECS (a care system support organisation) in collaboration with NHS trusts and local authorities, which tracks all admitted patients and the tasks relating to their discharge in real-time through their hospital journey.
We anticipate being live with OPTICA in early 2026, aiming to enhance coordination between hospital and community care teams in our area. This will help our patients to transition from hospital to community care faster and more safely.
Find out more
You can find out more about the NHS FDP on the NHS England website, including privacy information, FAQs and case studies: NHS England » NHS Federated Data Platform (opens in a new tab)
The supplier for the NHS FDP was procured by NHS England through an independent and transparent procurement process in line with public contract regulation and legislation, with the contract awarded in November 2023. You can find out more here: NHS England » Contract explainer (opens in a new tab)
Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust was not involved in the procurement process for the NHS FDP supplier.