Implementing learning health systems in the UK NHS: Policy actions to improve collaboration and transparency and support innovation and better use of analytics

Abstract

Learning health systems (LHS) use digital health and care data to improve care, shorten the timeframe of improvement projects, and ensure these are based on real‐world data. In the United Kingdom, policymakers are depending on digital innovation, driven by better use of data about current health service performance, to enable service transformation and a more sustainable health system.

This paper examines what would be needed to develop LHS in the United Kingdom, considering national policy implications and actions, which local organisations and health systems could take.

The paper draws on a seminar attended by academics, policymakers, and practitioners, a brief literature review, and feedback from policy experts and National Health Service (NHS) stakeholders.

Although there are examples of some aspects of LHS in the UK NHS, it is hard to find examples where there is a continuous cycle of improvement driven by information and where analysis of data and implementing improvements is part of usual ways of working.

The seminar and literature identified a number of barriers. Incentives and capacity to develop LHS are limited, and requires a shift in analytic capacity from regulation and performance, to quality improvement and transformation. The balance in priority given to research compared with implementation also needs to change.

Policy initiatives are underway which address some barriers, including building analytical capacity, developing infrastructure, and data standards. The NHS and research partners are investing in infrastructure which could support LHS, although clinical buy in is needed to bring about improvement or address operational challenges.

We identify a number of opportunities for local NHS organisations and systems to make better use of health data, and for ways that national policy could promote the collaboration and greater use of analytics which underpin the LHS concept.