From Insights to Impact

Public servants have been at the heart of responding to the shocks of Brexit and a global pandemic, both of which followed far too hot on the heels of the 07/08 global financial crisis and the resulting years of austerity. There are some small glimmers that 2022 might offer just a little more capacity for strategic planning, rather than largely tactical responses.

The health and care sector and its workforce have endured two incredibly difficult years. As 2022 begins and the NHS begins to look to a “post pandemic world”, whatever that may mean, rebuilding and recovering from COVID-19 are obvious focusses. Technology will inevitably play a part, and the opportunity to use digital approaches to do more with the same, or even less, resource will doubtless be something that leaders embrace. Here are some predictions for the year ahead in health and care.

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) is the independent health and social care regulator for England.

Defence has seen its world change as all areas have over the last two years, but it is fair to say that as a sector we were fairly badly prepared for a world of work that was fully remote. DDAT teams were working overtime to ensure that people could now do their jobs in a way not previously attempted and certainly on a scale that would have taken years to reach. I think this en-masse sheep-dip into remote and hybrid working will have huge benefits, diversifying the workforce and improving resilience.

If an item becomes obsolete, no longer in use or isn’t working, it’s either disposed of or sent to storage. Across DE&S, there was no set process to monitor and manage the disposal risk of these items. It was only being done at team level, tracked over non-interfaced electronic systems, local spreadsheets and paper-based registers.

Systems could not be linked. Confidence in the disposal process could not be recorded or understood.

The MOD holds an enormous amount of unstructured text data. One of the barriers to using standard models to gain insights from this data is the extensive use of bespoke acronyms: there are more than 21k acronyms commonly in use across the MOD, with some of them representing up to 17 different meanings. This complexity means creating a straightforward acronym dictionary was impossible. They needed a tailored solution to recognise and retrieve the long explanation of acronyms in text.

In the age of information warfare, Strategic Command plays a key role in the MOD, working across land, sea, air, space and cyber domains. In 2020, Methods Analytics began working with DDS to create an Artificial Intelligence Centre of Expertise (AI CoE). Our first project: develop an NLP solution to improve data validation for the compiling and reporting of the MOD health and safety annual statistics.

It helps people to live more independent, healthier lives for longer. The DHSH required a new Medical Examiners platform to collect, secure, search and analyse person-identifiable data on all deaths in the NHS in England and Wales. Part of long-term plans to reform how death certifications work.

To support the Abu Dhabi Vision 2030 – a long-term plan to help transform the emirate’s economy – the DoH require a quality framework that will allow monitoring and feedback across the healthcare sector. This new solution will help to set a new standard for the quality and efficiency of care; while an evidence base will support regulatory function and financial allocation.