We are thrilled to announce the winners of this year’s Florence Nightingale Award for Excellence in Health and Care Analytics. Named in honour of Florence Nightingale, the Society’s first female fellow and a pioneer of data visualisation, this award celebrates data analysts in the health and care sector whose work has led to better health outcomes across the UK.
Now in its sixth year, the award is supported by the Health Foundation, an independent charitable organisation working to build a healthier UK.
Dr Sarah Cumbers, chief executive of the Royal Statistical Society, said: ‘This year’s winners exemplify the power of data to drive meaningful change in our health and care services. Their work not only demonstrates statistical excellence, but also shows how transparent, collaborative analytics can lead to better outcomes for patients and communities across the UK.’
Charles Tallack, director of data analytics at the Health Foundation, added, said: ‘The effective use of data and analytics is crucial to improving the health and care system. These two 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.’
The following teams received their awards during a ceremony held in London.
Winner: The Strategy Unit & The New Hospital Programme for ‘Transforming planning: a common open-source model for forecasting hospital demand’
The NHS Strategy Unit, in collaboration with the New Hospital Programme, has developed the first nationally consistent, open-source model for forecasting future demand on hospital and community services. Built on over 140 million patient-level records, the model supports credible planning at local, regional, and national levels. It features over 100 adjustable parameters and uses Monte Carlo simulations to reflect real-world uncertainty, enabling scenario analysis around demographics, health inequalities, and service needs. By moving away from closed models, it promotes transparency, trust, and alignment with local transformation plans. Now adopted by NHS England, it is reshaping healthcare infrastructure planning across the UK.
The award judges were impressed by the statistical robustness of the project - both in terms of the methodologies employed and the strong commitment to transparency. The project's impact, especially in driving improvements for patients, is highly commendable and speaks to the values at the centre of this award.
Highly commended: The Children’s Hospital Alliance and Edge Health for ‘Collaborative Benchmarking: Driving Shared Learning and Responsive Children and Young People Services’
To address long-standing gaps in comparative data for specialist children's hospitals, the Children's Hospital Alliance in collaboration with Edge Health launched the first dedicated benchmarking programme across 13 leading paediatric centres in England. By combining detailed patient-level activity with public data on capacity, workforce, and inequalities, the programme reveals critical paediatric trends often hidden in adult-focused reporting. More than just analytics, it fosters collaboration by enabling trusts to explore findings with the analytics team and connect with peers to share best practices.
The judges were impressed with how this project has driven data-informed improvements and supported strategic decision-making, with its effective communication to decision-makers. It has strengthened advocacy for children and young people’s services at all levels.