From 17 falls a month to two: inside a Trust-wide data upskilling drive

When Anvi Boulbouldjou asked the Oakdale Ward team at Harrogate District Hospital what was behind a spike in patient falls, he wasn’t satisfied with the “gut feelings” answers he got back. So he went digging into the data instead. The analyses that followed led to fewer falls, shorter emergency department waiting times and lower costs.

Anvi is a Quality and Cancer Performance Manager, and he was on a Data and Insights for Business Decisions (Level 3) apprenticeship with Multiverse as part of the Trust’s drive to develop the data and AI literacy of its workforce.

“We realised there were a record number of falls in July — 17,” he said. “I decided this should be my Multiverse project and started creating new Power BI dashboards, pulling more detailed data. Why do falls happen? When do they happen?”

The picture that emerged pointed to specific actions the team could take, and in six months falls were reduced to an average of two per month. “Oakdale became a trailblazer,” added Anvi. “Everyone wanted to learn about how they can achieve that in their own workplace.”

‍Learning built around the Trust’s biggest priorities

Harrogate and District NHS Foundation Trust has been upskilling staff in data and AI with Multiverse since March 2025.

“The Trust chose to use Multiverse because we were able to flex the programme to meet our needs,” said Jimmy Parvin, Deputy Director of Strategy & Improvement.

That means aligning its apprenticeships around the Trust’s four pillars: raising the digital baseline across the organisation, lifting its ceiling, improving patient outcomes, and reducing waste.

Forty one apprentices have joined the programme to date, drawn from clinical and non-clinical roles spanning wards, pharmacy, cancer pathways, safeguarding, and corporate teams. So far, 94% of those who have completed their studies have achieved a distinction, all while continuing in their full-time roles.

And this is part of a bigger NHS-wide shift. Currently around 2,800 people across the NHS are enrolled on Multiverse apprenticeships, working to drive digital adoption and improve how the NHS delivers care nationally.

From scared of spreadsheets to Power BI power user  

A patient’s fall is never just an isolated incident with isolated consequences, as Anvi explained:

“When a fall happens, it can actually increase the time a patient spends in hospital and this has a huge direct impact on our hospital capacity, and even with the emergency department waiting times. The financial impact of this is huge.”

Anvi broke that chain using data the hospital already had, and his story is all the more striking because of where he started.

“Power BI was a no-no word for me — I was even scared of Excel,” he said. “Creating Power BI dashboards was only possible because of the knowledge that I built on a Multiverse apprenticeship. Now I use them every single day.” 

‍Not just for analysts and managers

Carly Dodsworth, Head of Public Health Nursing and Operations, signed up for Data and Insights for Business Decisions (Level 3) after seeing what a colleague on the programme was learning. 

“The quality of their reports was just outstanding — it blew me away,” she said. “You might think, well, as a nurse, that's not applicable. But management and oversight of multiple teams means you're processing and digesting huge volumes of data.”

For her project, Carly took on the statutory ‘2 to 2½-year developmental review,’ part of the national 0-19 Healthy Child Programme and which the Trust delivers in Cumberland and Westmorland. At the start of 2025, only around half of children were receiving this review, against a national expectation of 90% and a national average of 75-80%. Uptake is now consistently above 90%.

“Prior to doing Multiverse, the data was shared within an Excel chart, and all that provided was high level data,” she said. “We needed to know much more than that, but there was very much a narrative from the team that they didn’t have capacity, that this wasn’t possible. Then I was saying, ‘It is possible and this is what it looks like: you use Power BI to translate that data and communicate it more clearly.’”

Cascading capabilities

From Oakdale Ward’s status as a trailblazer to Carly’s wish to emulate her colleague, the way capability is spreading through the organisation is a major source of excitement for Jimmy Parvin.

“There's a really nice cascade,” he said. “We're building capability in the organisation, both at an individual level where the learners have got skills that they can apply to their projects, but also to other parts of their business.”

The main beneficiaries, conclude both Jimmy and Carly, are the Trust’s people and its patients, which is exactly how it should be.

“Development is at the heart of healthcare because we're a people business,” said Jimmy. “It’s important in the broadest sense of developing people, to give them the opportunity to realise that being a better clinician is enhanced by being able to understand the data that's available to them.”

“It makes a difference to children and young people — it makes a difference to your teams,” said Carly. “It can put people on a different life path.”