Data Infrastructure: The Foundation for NHS Digital Transformation

Monday 27th January 2025

The NHS faces unprecedented pressure to reform. Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has explicitly linked future funding to modernisation, emphasising the need for fundamental change. The message is clear: transformation is no longer optional. With rising demand, high vacancy rates and persistent backlogs straining services, the Prime Minister has called for a fundamental shift from an analogue to a digital health service. Yet there's a stark disconnect between this vision and the reality - the NHS has achieved only a third of its commitments in the Data Saves Lives Strategy.

While digital transformation promises to boost productivity and enhance patient care, many NHS staff still grapple with outdated systems that impede their work. The British Medical Association reports that slow or malfunctioning technology wastes over 13.5 million hours of doctors' time annually in England - equivalent to 8,000 full-time doctors or £1 billion in lost productivity. As political leaders tie future investment to reform, modernising data infrastructure becomes increasingly critical.

Pure Storage partnered with Bytes and GovNews to create a whitepaper and podcast exploring how NHS organisations can improve outcomes with modern data storage. This blog shares highlights from the whitepaper.

Get your copy of the full whitepaper

The Data Imperative

The NHS Federated Data Platform (FDP) represents a major step toward connected, data-driven healthcare. Currently in its delivery phase, the FDP will enable trusts and Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) to bring together operational data, from rosters and waiting lists to health records in one place. This integration is crucial for improving patient outcomes but requires robust infrastructure to securely store and rapidly access data.

The benefits of effective data infrastructure extend across the healthcare ecosystem:

  • For clinicians, comprehensive access to patient data enables more informed decision-making and holistic care delivery.
  • For patients, integrated records eliminate the need to repeatedly share their medical history.
  • For ICBs, population-level insights can drive preventative interventions.
  • For researchers, connected datasets can accelerate breakthrough discoveries.

Building Strong Foundations

Modern data infrastructure is the lynchpin for realising these benefits. Key requirements include:

  • Flexible hybrid cloud storage that aligns with NHS funding models.
  • Simplified management to reduce administrative burden.
  • Enterprise-grade security to protect sensitive data.
  • Scalable architecture to support emerging technologies.
  • Sustainable systems to support NHS net zero goals by 2045.
  • Cost-effective solutions, especially given impending Broadcom VMware changes.

The Virtualisation Challenge

The Broadcom acquisition of VMware has created uncertainty around virtualisation costs and strategy. Gartner predicts that through 2028, these market disruptions will drive over 60% of enterprises to accelerate public cloud migration and explore revirtualisation options.

NHS IT leaders can choose from four main pathways:

  1. Continuing with VMware but implementing alternative storage
  2. Switching to alternative virtualisation providers
  3. Adopting cloud-managed VMware
  4. Modernising with container-based solutions like KubeVirt

Leaders must plan strategically to ensure the right foundations for innovation while ensuring value for money.

Impact on Staff Experience

Infrastructure choices directly affect end-user experience. When systems are slow or unreliable, it impacts everything from radiologists reviewing scans to nurses accessing patient records. Modern data storage can transform this experience by:

  • Eliminating system downtime and delays.
  • Reducing helpdesk calls and IT firefighting.
  • Enabling faster deployment of new clinical applications.
  • Supporting emerging technologies like AI and wearables.

Enhancing Patient Care Through Better Data Storage

Modern data storage infrastructure directly impacts patient outcomes. NHS England data shows that one in five patients wait six or more weeks for diagnostic imaging, with slow systems contributing to these delays. When radiographers can instantly access and review high-resolution scans, diagnosis times shrink and treatment can begin sooner.

Similarly, reliable access to comprehensive patient records enables clinicians to make faster, better-informed decisions at the point of care. In emergency situations where minutes matter, robust infrastructure ensures critical patient information is immediately available. This infrastructure foundation also enables remote monitoring and virtual care initiatives, supporting the shift toward care closer to home while reducing hospital stays.

Real-World Success

A major UK teaching hospital partnered with Pure Storage in 2019 to modernise their data infrastructure. Since then, they've tripled their capacity to over 1Pb. Making changes to the underlying infrastructure had far-reaching benefits, allowing them to achieve:

  • 100% systems availability with zero planned or unplanned storage downtime
  • 80% reduction in storage-related data centre power and cooling costs
  • Dramatic acceleration in new clinical application deployment
  • Significantly improved end-user experience across all systems

The Path Forward

As the NHS faces mounting pressure to reform and modernize, getting the infrastructure foundations right is crucial. Modern data storage solutions can help trusts navigate current challenges while building future capability, whether that's supporting AI initiatives or enabling remote patient monitoring. With the government linking future funding to transformation, investments in data infrastructure represent a strategic imperative for NHS organisations.

The choice of data infrastructure today will determine an organisation's ability to deliver on the promise of data-driven healthcare tomorrow. For NHS IT directors, this presents both a challenge and an opportunity to shape the future of healthcare delivery while meeting the reform agenda that political leaders across the spectrum now demand.

Storage Made Simple

Looking to navigate the complexity of modern data infrastructure in the NHS? Pure Storage helps you find stability amid disruption, putting you back in control.

Get your copy of the whitepaper and podcast to delve deeper and get expert insights on modern data storage.

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