As part of our Interconnection Between People, Process and Technology book, produced in partnership with Tanium, we spoke to Jason Bradley, Chief Digital & Data Officer, NHS Digital.
It’s clear from just a short conversation with Jason that he’s driven by a powerful mission: to ensure the successful delivery of services for patients and service users within the NHS. Indeed, when our discussion moved to the subject of Jason’s aspirations and ambitions for his role, he shared that he wanted to deliver “the best technology, processes and data to support our staff and patients, ensuring we provide the highest quality digital and data services and the best working conditions for our staff”.
As Chief Digital and Data Officer, with a seat on the board, security is an important part of his remit. He uses this voice to drive compliance with NHS minimum standards for cybersecurity and data governance, and to embed security ownership at all levels of the organisation. But, as the greatest vulnerability for the NHS comes from third-party suppliers, ensuring departments address these risks is Jason’s biggest priority, and he says that “ensuring their security is as strong as ours is a critical challenge”.
It will come as no surprise that Jason’s ambition and capabilities are hindered by financial constraints and resource limitations. When it comes to technology investments, Jason is mindful that the onus is always on tackling NHS business challenges such as productivity, safety and engagement with patients and service users. But investments in maintaining and improving the NHS infrastructure, including cybersecurity, are also key. Innovation is also an important driver and they are exploring emerging technologies such as AI to assess their potential benefits for service delivery.
The team recently rolled out the integration of sepsis identification into their electronic patient record system. As Jason explains,
“Sepsis is a life-threatening condition that requires immediate action. We are deploying decision-support tools into our system to help clinical teams identify potential cases early, automate test ordering and track performance in real-time and over time. This initiative enhances patient safety and supports more efficient clinical decision- making.”
Technology clearly plays an important role in enabling innovations like this to happen. However, if systems and tools can’t talk to each other or exchange information, collaboration and innovation will be impossible to achieve.
“We operate multiple systems within and outside our organisation but suppliers in the NHS ecosystem often provide poor interoperability and APIs. Clinicians need seamless access to patient data without duplicating the entry or missing critical information. Achieving an open, connected system architecture will be one of our biggest challenges in the coming years.”