Celebrating 78 years of the NHS: Vicky Speed’s perspective on how large-scale NHS GP data analysis helps deliver safer, better patient care

As the NHS marks its 78th birthday, large-scale NHS GP data analysis is continuing to play an increasingly critical role in delivering safe and effective patient care in the UK. Vicky Speed, Clinical Informatician at the Bennett Institute and Anticoagulation Pharmacist at King’s College Hospital, London has seen that impact first-hand – both in research, and in the day-to-day lives of patients, GPs, and healthcare organisations.

OpenPrescribing, the Bennett Institute’s interactive, data-driven tool for exploring NHS GP prescribing behaviour across England, is making that impact visible. “With more than 20,000 unique users per month, OpenPrescribing gives medicines optimisation teams and GP practices insight into prescribing variation, helping them improve quality, safety and cost effectiveness in their local area,” says Vicky. “It can help spot differences in prescribing, and ensure that all patients get access to safe, quality care.”

OpenPrescribing Hospitals applies the same approach to secondary care, giving users an easier way to explore and compare hospital medicines data from NHS Trusts across England. Open secondary medicines data was made available to all users in 2021, and was essential in the creation of OpenPrescribing Hospitals.

As Project Lead for OpenPrescribing Hospitals, Vicky sees its value in the improvements it makes to users on the ground. “Pharmacists in hospital wards are often juggling the pressures of discharges and looking after patients, and often don’t have the time to be wrangling monthly csv files,” says Vicky. “To make this easier, we link the data to organisations and dm+d (NHS Dictionary of Medicines and Devices), so that pharmacists can do detailed analyses into the medicines they use.”

Research possibilities also extend beyond prescribing. Clinical informaticians worked together with software developers at the Bennett Institute to build OpenPathology, a prototype interactive dashboard using routine GP data to safely and securely analyse pathology testing in primary care, with the ability to study breakdowns by deprivation, ethnicity, age, and region.

“With OpenPathology, we’re able to look at routine medical procedures or activities in GP records, such as blood tests to study variation in care for specific populations,” says Vicky. “For example, when we analyse the GP records of patients diagnosed with diabetes, we can look closely at HbA1c, a blood test used to monitor and diagnose the condition. By looking at how often these tests are requested, alongside the results themselves, we can better understand whether people are being tested at the right time and whether their diabetes is under control.”

For Vicky, the potential of large-scale GP data analysis is clear: the tools already exist to improve care and turn routine data into actionable insights. And crucially, so do the data – generated every day as a by-product of clinical activity. The opportunity now is to use that data safely and effectively, so it can continue to support the highest quality care for all patients.

To learn more about the Bennett Institute’s work with big data, visit the website, follow the Institute on LinkedIn and @bennettoxford.bsky.social (BlueSky), and sign up to receive notifications of the latest blog posts and newsletter updates.