Celebrating the first graduates of Barts Health’s data and digital apprenticeships

Across the NHS, the shift to a more digital, AI-enabled future is the defining challenge of the decade. Meeting it depends less on the technology itself than on the people who use it — and especially on whether they have the skills to turn data into better decisions and better care.

Barts Health NHS Trust set out to build those skills from within. Its data and digital apprenticeships, delivered in partnership with Multiverse, are designed to do exactly that. And now the Trust is celebrating the graduation of its first cohort: more than 150 clinical and operational staff now have the practical data skills they need to tackle the frontline problems they know best. (With a massive 71% achieving Distinction so far.)

Building data skills from the inside out

The apprenticeships were designed to build critical skills across Barts Health and the hospitals in its Trust. Its core aims were to:

• Improve data skills in ways that benefit patient outcomes, directly or indirectly 
• Empower people to make data-driven decisions, break down data silos and identify cost savings
• Reduce time spent on manual processes and duplicated work
• Invest in employees to unlock future talent and retain high performers

“We want to make sure everyone has the right skills they need, and an apprenticeship is a great way to do that,” said Kieran Kelly, MD, Education Academy.

The early results bear this out. Learners in all departments are seeing impact through greater efficiency, with some quoting a 40-50% reduction in administrative workload — that means more time for patients.

Solving the problems they know best

On graduation day, a doctor who completed the programme described adding coding to his skillset, with transformative results for the daily running of his ward.

“As a doctor, coding is not part of my skillset, so I certainly needed a lot of support,” said Dr Konstantinos Dimitriade, a paediatric intensive care consultant. “The nursing day book is a literal book — we can only write and edit it so many times before it becomes completely illegible. So we created a small application to automate it and flag which upcoming shifts might run into problems, so we can mitigate staffing issues. That lets nurses spend more time with patients, where they want to be.”

The apprenticeship helped another learner, working in patient safety, tackle a seemingly intractable problem: how do you measure something as complex as safety culture?

“In my work, I realised data skills were absolutely essential, so I took the opportunity to become a Level 3 Data Analyst,” said Dr Annie Hunningher, Consultant Anaesthetist. “Safety is notoriously difficult to measure. I pulled together three years of data and built trends from it. Now we can use the dashboard to problem-sense — an area where safety culture is poor will flag, and we can prevent harmful incidents before they happen. It saves time and saves harm, by showing us exactly where to put resources and support. It’s a genuinely new way of understanding safety within our organisation and beyond.”

For other learners, the change has been one of mindset as much as method.

“When we think about data, we picture something we have to sit down and spend a lot of time analysing. But this course taught me that putting a bit more time in at the start to set up reports means I can work smarter,” said Vivian Wong, Service Lead Pharmacist. “Part of my job is managing a very busy chemotherapy unit, and the tool I’m building will help us manage the rising number of patients we’re seeing — and ultimately, improve our chemotherapy wait times.”

Skills that last a career

These stories show the Trust’s wider ambition in action: building data skills that make a real difference to patient outcomes, directly or indirectly. The lasting change the apprenticeships have unlocked is creating value that reaches far beyond any single project.

“The feeling of success I’ve had when I’ve worked something out that a year ago I wouldn’t have understood has been absolutely amazing,” said Dr Hunningher. 

Vivian added: “The skills I’ve learned will be lifelong. They’ll change my approach and how I work for the rest of my career.”

Barts Health set out to build its own data and digital future. Its first graduating cohort shows what becomes possible when an organisation backs its people to grow. And for these graduates, it’s just the beginning.