The analysts behind the mass Covid testing pilot in Liverpool and a project looking into the impact of long Covid in Scotland are joint winners of the 2023 Florence Nightingale Award for Excellence in Healthcare Data Analytics.
The award, named after the Society’s first female fellow and pioneer of data visualisation, Florence Nightingale, celebrates data analysts in the UK health and care sector whose work has delivered better outcomes for patients.
Now in its fourth year, the award is supported by the Health Foundation, an independent charitable organisation working to build a healthier UK.
The 2023 winners are:
Joint winner: Analysing electronic health records to identify prevalence of long COVID - EAVE II Long COVID Team (Karen Jeffrey, Luke Daines, Lana Woolford, Rishma Maini, Siddharth Basetti, Ashleigh Batchelor, David Weatherill, Chris White, Vicky Hammersley, Tristan Millington, Calum Macdonald, Steven Kerr, Ting Shi, Jennifer Quint, Gabriella Linning, Josie Muray, Manu Shankar-Hari, Robin Kerr, Bruce Watson, Syed Ahmar Shah, Safraj Shahul Hameed, Adenyi Francis Fagbamigbe, Dave Kelly, Colin Simpson, Srinivasa Vittal Katikireddi, Chris Robertson, Lewis Ritchie, Aziz Sheikh, Anouska Pandya, Debbie Sagar & Jane Borland).
This collaboration between the universities of St Andrews, Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Strathclyde along with Public Health Scotland involved rigorous statistical analysis of the health records of Scotland’s entire adult population. This was in order to estimate the prevalence of long Covid, which due to the complexities of the condition had made it difficult to measure. The results of the analysis are being used to inform Public Health Scotland’s provision for long Covid patients as well as the Scottish Parliament’s Covid-19 Recovery Committee recommendations on legislation and policies.
The judges considered the quality of the project to be the type of work that ‘all analysts should be aiming for’. They were impressed with the engagement with managers and clinicians as well as patients throughout the process. The team also engaged with the wider public, with the work being featured by the BBC, Daily Mail and others. A variety of appropriate statistical methods were used and equality, diversity and inclusion were thoughtfully considered throughout.
Joint winner: Liverpool COVID SMART mass testing evaluation and CIPHA analytic legacy - University of Liverpool in partnership with NHS Cheshire & Merseyside, Liverpool City Region Combined Authority (Civic Data Cooperative), Liverpool City Council, and Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust.
This project is a culmination of three years of work by a team across Liverpool’s academic, public health and NHS partners. With the creation of the UK’s first Civic Data Cooperative for public and practitioner involvement in health data analysis, the team established the system that enabled Liverpool to offer the world’s first large scale testing pilot for voluntary use of lateral flow tests. The data gathered from this was delivered to SAGE within six weeks of the start of the pilot, informing both UK and international pandemic policy.
The judging panel was impressed with the huge amount of work done to engage meaningfully and proactively with different organisations and the wider public. A real commitment was demonstrated to openness with the publication of the code and resources, including information governance documentation. The impact was outstanding, with a reduction in Covid hospitalisations reduced by at least a quarter during the pilot.
Charles Tallack, director of data analytics at the Health Foundation, commenting on this year’s winners, said: “The effective use of data and analytics is crucial to the recovery of the health and care system. These two winning projects are excellent examples of ambitious collaborations that improved health and care by harnessing data in innovative ways. Each team meaningfully involved and engaged patients and the public in their work, and published a wealth of information and resources in easily accessible forms. These impactful pieces of work are brilliant examples of how data analysts are tackling real world problems and benefiting patients. Congratulations to both teams."
Jonathan Everett, head of policy at the Royal Statistical Society, added: ‘This year’s winners demonstrate the breadth of impact data analytics has within healthcare and the positive outcomes it brings for patients and the wider public. I would like to give my congratulations to both teams.’
The RSS and Health Foundation are grateful to the judging panel (Nessa Becerra, Geraint Day, Karen Facey and Natalie Creary) for their involvement in this year’s award.