In acute trusts, the day starts with a capacity meeting. Site managers and matrons decide where patients go and which discharges will free beds before the afternoon rush from ED. The figures on the table were often built overnight from systems that don’t agree. By the end of the meeting, the picture has moved and staff are left asking more questions.
A modern data platform is the answer. Most trusts share the same goal: a single view of the patient. For many it remains an aspiration, because very few have mapped the route from today’s systems to that platform.
The platform alone won’t close the two gaps underneath it. No one in the trust yet understands what the target platform looks like, and many trusts lack the in-house skills to build and run it. Without both, migration turns into a long, expensive struggle.
EPR, SQL Server and ICB changes all land on the data team
EPR programmes are replacing the systems that feed statutory returns and performance reporting, so the reports built on them have to change too. Data warehouses on SQL Server 2016 lost Microsoft’s extended support on 14 July 2026, which forces a migration decision, planned or not.
Around the trust, the NHS structure is shifting. In March 2025 the government announced plans to abolish NHS England and merge its functions into DHSC, subject to Parliament’s approval. Six new ICBs replaced twelve in April 2026, with further mergers expected from April 2027 as local government reorganisation progresses.
Confidence in the national approach is under strain too. The Guardian reported on 30 September 2026 that more than 44,000 patients have filed legal objections to Palantir’s NHS platform handling their data. The health innovation minister has told MPs that trusts don’t have to adopt the Federated Data Platform. That leaves each trust to choose and design its own platform.
Each change lands on the trust’s data team, which still has to keep today’s reports running.
Why the morning figures are already out of date
Staff start the day without the information they need to act. As load builds, systems slow and a single pipeline fault can take out several reports at once. Clinicians can’t follow a patient from referral to discharge and operating theatres only see a bottleneck once it has formed. Winter and heatwaves make every one of these problems worse.
They trace back to one cause. Different teams built their own versions of the truth for different purposes, with duplicated logic and no agreed owner.
Map the route from today’s estate to the target platform
For a huge number of trusts the route to their target platform is still unclear. Few can say what it should look like or which systems move to it first.
That gap comes first, because a trust can’t own something it doesn’t understand. SCC’s Data Strategy Engagement maps the route. It assesses the current estate and the logic duplicated between systems, then sets out a target design aligned to NHS standards and the steps to reach it. Skip this step, and a programme can hit every technical milestone yet still fail to change how decisions get made.
Ownership follows understanding. Once the target is clear, name data owners, define Data Products and agree definitions, such as what counts as discharge-ready and who signs off a change to pathway logic. A shared standard such as the NHS Canonical Data Model keeps those definitions consistent as the platform grows. The operations director and the divisional lead then see the same number at 8am.
Prove value one stage at a time
A single view can arrive in stages. Start with a secure, governed platform and one working product, then add referrals, diagnostics, theatres and emergency care in turn. Reusing the same models and measures at each stage makes the second use case cheaper than the first.
Record a baseline first: how long reports take and how many engineering hours go on fixing faults. Without it, benefits stay anecdotal and the next funding case gets harder to make.
Grow skills alongside the platform
A modern platform needs data engineers and data owners willing to challenge a service lead on what a measure means. Those skills are hard to find. In a December 2025 Digital Health survey of 97 NHS CIOs, CCIOs and GPs, 96% said staffing strains are holding back digital progress.
If a supplier builds the platform and walks away, the trust inherits something it can’t confidently change. The next EPR upgrade or ICB merger then becomes a new dependency. A team that understands its platform can own it and adapt it as the trust changes.
At SCC, we measure success by leaving a trust more capable than we found it. Through our Data Strategy Engagement, our engineers work alongside the trust’s data team and coach data owners until the trust can run and improve the platform alone. Whichever partner you choose, ask how skills will transfer and how you’ll know they have.
Questions to ask before you commit
- Can we describe our target data platform and the steps to reach it?
- Does every key measure have a named owner?
- Do we have the skills to build a new platform, or only to maintain the current one?
- How much engineering time goes on fixing faults in today’s platform?
If the first question is hard to answer, start there. Every later choice depends on it, including which platform to buy and which skills to grow.
An SCC Data Strategy Engagement gives your trust a clear picture of its target platform and a sequenced route to reach it, before any platform decision. It runs alongside your own data team, so the skills stay in the trust when the work ends.