FOI reference: FOI-2026-3676
You asked
Under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, please provide any analytical paper that responds to or analyses the Health Foundation’s analysis of discharge performance at trusts using the NHS FDP’s OPTICA.
Elements of this analysis have already been reported publicly, so it is clearly held. There is a strong public interest in disclosure, given ministers have cited these figures publicly and the Office for Statistics Regulation found that their communication required correction. Where any document contains commercially sensitive third-party information, please redact only that material rather than withholding the document in full. The factual and statistical analysis is severable and should be disclosed.
We said
Thank you for your request, which asks that the UK Statistics Authority provides any analytical paper that responds to or analyses the Health Foundation's analysis of discharge performance at trusts using the NHS FDP's OPTICA.
As the Authority's regulatory arm, the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) is responsible for undertaking monitoring to identify issues regarding the production and or use of statistics and investigating issues raised with the Authority. We use our voice to stand up for statistics and to represent the public, reporting publicly where we have concerns and highlighting good practice.
Recently, OSR has been considering concerns raised with us regarding NHS England's presentation and communication of information and performance metrics informed by the Federated Data Platform (FDP). The concerns raised with OSR have included the apparent discrepancy between claims about the benefits of the Optimised Patient Tracking and Intelligent Choices Application (OPTICA) tool cited on the NHS England website and the findings of research into the impact of OPTICA by the Health Foundation.
To date, OSR's work has led to a public statement that sets out our judgement regarding the presentation and communication of data and statistics relating to the FDP by NHSE at the time we undertook our first review, and a public letter to the Chief Executive of the Health Foundation which outlines NHSE's actions to date to improve presentation and communication of FDP data, and its commitments to work closely with the Health Foundation in the future.
The Health Foundation's analysis of the relationship between adoption of OPTICA and delayed discharge from hospital was shared with OSR by NHSE in confidence as part of our initial work, and then by the Health Foundation directly This analysis has since been published by the Health Foundation.
OSR did not complete its own quantitative analysis of the Health Foundation analysis, so we do not have any additional analytical papers to provide as part of this response. Instead, as referenced in our public letter to the Health Foundation, we have sought to establish in our conversations with NHSE their engagement with the Health Foundation in relation to the Foundation's analysis, and how this has and should continue to influence communications about the impact of OPTICA by NHSE, and the design of NHSE's intended national evaluation of the FDP.
To support transparency, we are happy to share the high-level summary information on the Health Foundation analysis that was included in the OSR briefing that was prepared to support the development of our response to the concerns we have been considering regarding the FDP. The relevant bullets read:
The Health Foundation report was not commissioned by NHSE, and was an independent piece of work on discharge delays which was subsequently shared with NHSE. NHSE stated to OSR that it engaged openly with the Health Foundation, including by providing information about their approach and calculations, and highlighted key differences between the methods used in the report and the methods used by the NHS.
NHSE sets outs its methods on its Methods for the published uptake and benefits information webpage. This sets out that NHSE has calculated benefits by looking at delay days for patient cohorts with longer hospital stays (7+ days, 14+ days and 21+ days), inline with the intended use of OPTICA. NHSE has told OSR that the Health Foundation analysis was calculated from day 0, which is why different results have been observed.
Methodology: in line with benefit methodology, NHS England looked at trusts within the FDP programme, comparing their pre-FDP OPTICA performance with their post-FDP OPTICA performance. Whereas the Health Foundation looked at FDP OPTICA trusts vs non-FDP OPTICA trusts -- an evaluation-type approach looking at controls.
Calculation approach: the Health Foundation calculated the occupancy of bed days whilst NHSE looked at the number of delay days occurring.
We hope this explanation of our work in relation to the FDP and its outcomes to date is helpful.