The Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust is using data-driven healthcare to predict future health challenges, prevent disease progression, reduce health inequalities, and improve patient outcomes.

The trust is working across primary, community, and social care to harness the power of huge datasets and make timely interventions to improve people’s lives.

As an example, Dr Magnus Harrison highlighted kidney disease, where demand for care is expected to increase by 400 per cent over the next decade. To try to mitigate this increase, the Trust is working with GPs and local authorities to identify people at risk and intervene early to monitor and manage their blood pressure, preventing the deterioration of their renal function.

At the same time, as kidney disease and heart failure run side by side, the trust is looking at linking renal physicians with cardiologists to get further ahead of the curve.

It is hoped this collaboration will help drive down health inequalities. By using data, health services can target resources at people in the poorest areas.

Meanwhile, the Leeds-based National Pathology Imaging Cooperative is collaborating with Genomics England to build the biggest cancer data repository in the world. It is hoped the data will be used to better inform diagnoses and best direct treatment.

Dr Magnus Harrison said: "Undeniably, linking datasets is difficult but we are making great progress as these examples illustrate. If we don’t pursue this approach to data in healthcare, it is highly likely we will see more admissions and, as a consequence, we will need more beds and more clinicians. Instead, we need to peer beyond our hospital walls and work across the boundaries of the traditional health and care sector to look after our population in the future."