Dr Marc Farr, chair of the Chief Data and Analytics Network and national chair of the Association of Professional Healthcare Analysts (AphA) (Credit: Marc Farr)<\/p>\n
NHS England\u2019s mandate that all providers adopt the federated data platform (FDP) has been criticised for being \u201cat odds\u201d with existing policy and pushing a product which doctors don\u2019t believe is \u201cup to the job\u201d for patients.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The NHSE medium term planning framework<\/a>, published on 24 October 2025, stated that all trusts and integrated care boards (ICBs) must be onboarded to the NHS FDP<\/a>\u00a0and use its core products to support elective recovery, cancer, and urgent and emergency care.<\/p>\n However, Marc Farr, chair of the Chief Data and Analytical Officer\u2019s Network, told Digital Health News that the guidance is \u201cat odds with the existing policy that says you have to consider the FDP but if you already have data and tools in place then you can proceed and not use it\u201d.<\/p>\n He previously wrote an open letter<\/a> to Ming Tang, chief data and analytics officer at NHSE, raising concerns<\/a> about whether the FDP is capable of supporting local systems.<\/p>\n NHS trusts with their own products have consistently pushed back<\/a> on adopting the FDP and despite 150 trusts having onboarded, only 77 were live and actively reporting benefits in September 2025, according to NHSE figures.<\/p>\n One trust that has expressed preference for its own products is Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, which reportedly<\/a> told NHSE earlier this year that adopting some of the FDP tools would lead it to \u201close functionality rather than gain it\u201d.<\/p>\n A spokesperson for Leeds Teaching Hospitals told Digital Health News that it has implemented the FDP Referral to treatment validation tool<\/a>, but will \u201ccontinue to utilise\u201d its own products for the provision of outpatient care co-ordination and discharge planning.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Greater Manchester ICB \u2014 which has its own mature interconnected data systems including the GM Care Record<\/a>, Analytics and Data Science Platform and Secure Data Environment for Research \u2014 remains the only ICB<\/a> to have not signed up to the NHS FDP.<\/p>\n A spokesperson for Greater Manchester told Digital Health News: \u201cWhile the Board has not yet committed to adoption, we remain involved in discussions to shape guidance and explore how the FDP could complement our local data platforms.\u201d<\/p>\n Speaking in October 2025, Tang appeared to take a dig at providers which continue to use their own products, calling leaders\u2019 egos<\/a> \u201cthe biggest challenge to the adoption of NHS technology\u201d.<\/p>\n In response, Rosa Curling, co-executive director of Foxglove<\/a>, an non-profit which previously launched a campaign<\/a> against FDP supplier Palantir<\/a>, said: \u201cNHS bosses have chosen to blame slow uptake of FDP on \u2018ego\u2019 and \u2018ideology\u2019 but the truth seems more mundane: doctors just don\u2019t seem convinced that Palantir\u2019s kit is up to the job for their patients.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve seen major NHS trusts in Manchester and Leeds say FDP either wouldn\u2019t improve the systems they already have, or in some cases would actually reduce quality.<\/p>\n \u201cUnless NHSE can address those concerns in a public and transparent way to both doctors and patients, it\u2019s hard to see why they should accept Palantir\u2019s failing product \u2013 no matter how many arbitrary deadlines NHSE decides to announce.\u201d<\/p>\n What do you think about NHSE\u2019s target for FDP adoption? Comment below\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dr Marc Farr, chair of the Chief Data and Analytics Network and national chair of the Association of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":244012,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[102365,102366,102367,102368,102369,102370,70022,102371,102,2960,102372,6605,102373,102374,102375,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-244011","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-association-of-professional-healthcare-analysts","tag-cdaon","tag-chief-data-and-a","tag-chief-data-and-analytical-officers-network","tag-dr-marc-farr","tag-fdp","tag-foxglove","tag-greater-manchester-icb","tag-health","tag-healthcare","tag-leeds-teaching-hospitals-nhs-trust","tag-nhs-england","tag-nhs-federated-data-platform","tag-nhs-planning-guidance","tag-nhse","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244011","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244011"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244011\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/244012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}