HEE Data Service

The HEE Data Service works in collaborative partnership with the specialist data driven teams across the Workforce Planning and Intelligence Directorate. This also extends to data sharing and partnership arrangements with ALBs and stakeholders across the Health and Social Care landscape.  The Data Service provides the e-collection platform and access to tableau products and the product Index and data library that support the effective sharing of data, information and links for organisations and stakeholders alike to access.

Data Collection

Health Education England’s National Data Service Team provides a national data collection function and underpinning strategy. This provides a standardised approach to HEE external data collection activity relating to the following clinical and non-clinical groups:

• Students &apprentices on healthcare courses leading to registration with a professional regulatory body
• Students on healthcare-related courses whose salaries are funded by HEE (not including medical trainees)
• Students & staff (including apprentices) on other health-related courses, including post-registration courses
• Workforce development activity collected by HEE (not including medical)
• Workforce data collected by HEE (with the exception of medical trainees)

Background

Data collection activities within HEE have evolved across teams and functions, and in 2019 it was recognised that there was a need to rationalise these activities to deliver benefits and efficiencies to the system. Delivery and implementation of a national strategy would provide a single set of standard, national data, remove variation in approach, reduce burden and duplication, improve data quality and address data gaps.

In June 2020, the Data Collection project team, in partnership with Softwire Ltd, undertook a 10-week Discovery exercise, conducting research into data collection requirements. During Discovery, the team undertook a technical review, conducted research interviews, and consulted with various groups and committees within HEE, and with external colleagues from NHS Trusts, Primary Care, Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) and Integrated Care Systems (ICSs). The research focused on user requirements for data relating to:

• Student numbers
• Placement information and management
• Placement capacity
• Payment information and management
• Future workforce supply
• Future workforce demand
• Workforce development

The Discovery phase focused on some key research questions which enabled:

• Exploration of the data collection ecosystem to identify key insights and understand who is involved, what their roles are and what systems they use
• The development of ‘personas’, fictional characters that represents a type of user and an understanding the ‘pain-points’ they face
• The development of 14 ‘Epics’/ draft standards, which aim to define what a fit-for-purpose solution should look like
• Mapping of the ‘as-is’ data collection process, analysis and evaluation of bottlenecks, commonalities and tools, and creation of a ‘to-be’ model, including the idealised data collection flow
• The identification of a range of requirements and recommend costed options and solutions for future data collection. 

The Discovery work also included research interviews to identify placement oversight systems used by HEIs, understand the needs of ICSs and HEE’s future data collection requirements in this space, and look at how current data collections can be used to help inform discussions on maximisation of placement capacity. This will directly inform the HEE Business Plan requirement for 2020/21, to work with ICSs to co-design the specification for a digital management system for clinical placements. 

The Alpha phase of the project took place in September & October 2020. We are now moving into the implementation phase for the new HEE data collection Strategy.

This will mean:

• Alignment of collections through the E-collection tool
• A joining up of templates where appropriate to simplify and minimise
• Opportunities to provide feedback to the team on improvements
• A sharing back of outputs and summary information

Contact us

For further information on this project, please contact the Data Service Team: Dataservice@hee.nhs.uk

eCollection

To support the long-term workforce planning process, HEE has developed ‘eCollection', an in-house data collection platform supporting a suite of data collection tools.

Further information is available at eCollection.