Update on The Open Data Task & Finish Group

Earlier in the year, we shared some of the progress being made by the Open Data Task & Finish Group, a cross-governmental collaboration to improve the use of open data across the health ecosystem. Through rich discussion leading up to the New Year, the team identified some key problem areas that hinder the adoption of open practices and sought to address some of these challenges, which they discussed in their guest blog post back in January.

Since then, and in light of the recent release of the Goldacre Review, the Task & Finish Group has begun to focus its efforts on offering support to overcome the strategic and technical blockers to delivering more efficient and safer use of NHS data for processing, analysis and research. The Government Analytical Service set out a strategy offering guidance for analysts and leaders to deliver these improvements via Reproducible Analytical Pipelines (RAP), a set of best practices that ensure analysis pipelines are transparent, efficient, reliable, reusable and reproducible, promoting open working practices and enabling more work to be done at pace in the long term.

As the next phase of the Open Data Task & Finish Group evolves to promote and support the adoption of RAP alongside the wider recommendations set out in the Review, we will be working with them to host an event in September exploring use cases and practical solutions to the blockers encountered by teams across the NHS, DHSC, ONS and others.

We encourage those who are interested or working in this space to get in touch. They will be opening up to new members over the coming months who are keen to contribute towards the future direction of the Group.