By migrating to a modern cloud-based Azure Databricks platform, Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust overcame outdated infrastructure and fragmented data challenges. The platform provided a powerful foundation for holistic patient insights, smarter planning, and reduced inefficiencies. Now, with 20% fewer BI resources and more comprehensive dashboards, the Trust delivers more informed, data-driven care and improved patient outcomes.
NHS Buckinghamshire Healthcare provides exceptional care for patients across Buckinghamshire. With such a diverse community, they found the challenges and care needs of patients varied significantly across the Trust’s reach, creating a range of obstacles for its staff.
For example, some areas were more prone to missed appointments (DNAs) due to their location and the route to care. Additionally, some patients had higher rates of missed appointments due to their documented medical conditions.
So, the technical team were on the lookout for a solution to not only solve some infrastructure challenges they faced, but also to connect the dots between instances like missed appointments and opportunities for better care.
Like many NHS trusts, Buckinghamshire Healthcare was managing vast volumes of patient data across various servers, leaving their data fragmented and siloed. Many of these servers were out of support, creating barriers to the level of insights the team were calling out for.
“We were working with SQL Server versions from 2008 to 2019. It made joining up data almost impossible. There were technical barriers, duplicated processes, and huge overheads just to get basic reporting in place.”
Tendai Shumba, Data Visualisation & Analysis Lead at NHS Buckinghamshire
These siloes limited the Trust’s ability to derive meaningful insights from their data, leaving the data-driven care they were aiming for out of reach. Analysts were constrained, and efforts to move toward AI, service redesign, or advanced analytics were blocked by infrastructure and capability gaps.
At the same time, pressures on NHS services were growing, demanding more informed, joined-up care delivery and efficiency squeezes tightening across the team.
The first priority was eliminating data siloes and upgrading out-of-service servers to unlock all-new capabilities. Our data team set about migrating outdated on-premises servers to a new cloud-native data warehouse, underpinned by the Azure Databricks platform for transformation and processing.
The migration process was carefully carried out, ensuring robust data security and resource management for optimum efficiency. The new infrastructure enabled the data to be stored in a single source of truth, with modern capabilities that laid the groundwork for deep insights.
Next, our experts developed a proof-of-concept that quickly proved its worth; Tendai said “The POC unlocked the funding for the next sprint, and that allowed us to turn it into something production-ready that was transformative”.
NHS Buckinghamshire Healthcare selected Azure Databricks as their data platform on Transparity’s recommendation, as the best fit for the Trust’s requirements. With the core platform in place, the Trust began to feel the benefits almost immediately. Analysts could now triangulate data to build a richer picture of what was happening with patients, not just at one point in time, but across their journey through care.
The result is a level of insight that the team at NHS Buckinghamshire Healthcare can really put into action. Without barriers and hurdles to deriving insights, the team can see the journey of their patients from end-to-end and it’s already facilitating more informed care.
One of the exciting outcomes of the project for care staff is the visibility of patients’ journeys from A&E to discharge. With more comprehensive dashboards, teams no longer rely on separate reports for complaints, admissions, costs and staffing. Instead, a single dashboard can tell the full story.
For example, a patient admitted to A&E with chest pain but later found to be suffering from a collapsed lung can be correctly documented, forming a clearer picture for both the patient and the hospital. From A&E to clinical outcomes and ongoing treatment, care providers can see the full picture.
This complete picture is also helping medical professionals to predict future care and challenges to adapt accordingly. After seeing missed appointments were more prevalent in patients with certain conditions or living in certain areas, the team has been able to alter services offered to better reach them.
Whether offering in-home appointments or telemedical services, NHS Buckinghamshire Healthcare can now predict barriers to care before they impact both patients and scheduling. Insights into social deprivation, mobility, and medical history mean that services like “Health on the High Street” can be designed around patients’ real-world needs, not assumptions.
With this new 3D view of their patients’ stories, NHS Buckinghamshire has also been able to rethink resource planning.
These shifts have also supported the Trust through a period of change. Facing budget pressures, the organisation reduced its BI team by 20%. But, thanks to the automation and modern architecture in Azure, productivity hasn’t dropped. Tendai commented, “The restructure wasn’t driven by the Azure work, but it was only because of the Azure platform that we’ve been able to stay productive with fewer people.”
Looking ahead, AI is firmly on the roadmap. The NHS’s 10-year plan puts AI at the centre of future funding and innovation, and Tendai’s team is preparing accordingly.
“We don’t know exactly where we’ll go with AI yet, but thanks to the work we’ve done, we’re in a position to respond, experiment and scale when the time comes.”
Tendai Shumba, Data Visualisation & Analysis Lead at NHS Buckinghamshire
Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust provides integrated hospital and community services to over half a million people across the county. With over 6,000 staff and sites including Stoke Mandeville, Wycombe and Amersham Hospitals, the Trust is nationally recognised for specialist care, including spinal injuries. Its focus is on reducing health inequalities, improving community health, and delivering joined-up care to its patients.
