One Gloucestershire Analytical Development Programme 2gether NHS Foundation Trust

The lack of formal training in analytics offered to health and social care staff in Gloucestershire has led to a skills gap in the workforce and missed opportunities to utilise data to make improvements. Staff retention and recruitment represents another challenge, with analysts often moving between posts or being under-qualified for senior roles.

2gether NHS Foundation Trust has set out to address these issues by developing a training programme for analysts and managers that aims to improve analytical capability across the Gloucestershire health and care system.

In collaboration with an education provider (Weston College, Weston-super-Mare), a data analyst apprenticeship focusing on using data to improve patient care has been introduced.

Following an induction programme to assess their level of knowledge and re-introduce them to a learning environment, 12 apprentices from across the four partner organisations enrolled. Alongside academic studies, some undertook rotational work placements with health and care providers – this was identified as a mutually beneficial and worthwhile process that will continue beyond the programme. 

Over 100 partner organisation analysts, managers, clinicians and social workers have so far participated in business insight workshops, which were extremely well-received and facilitated information sharing on the benefits and application of data analysis.

Work is also underway to produce a bespoke health and social care data analyst qualification validated by the British Computer Society, which will equip analysts and health system leaders with the data knowledge to drive informed decision making.

A full evaluation will be carried out once the programme concludes in 2020, but participating organisations are already better analytically informed and able to improve service user experience as a result.

Contact information

For more information about this project, please contact Chris Woon, Head of Information Management and Clinical Systems, 2gether NHS Foundation Trust.