Widening debate on Greater Manchester’s data sharing strategy

General  · 

Greater Manchester is one of the first UK city-regions to move ahead with a new city devolution deal. Other city-regions may follow their lead. As part of their devolution deal the public sector organisations in Greater Manchester are considering how to use data to improve public services. Part of this thinking has a strong focus on data sharing through a new organisation called GM-Connect. A _press release and report has been released about GM-Connect.

This summary is intended to make the report more accessible and allow more people to understand the plans of GM-Connect so that they can engage with this important topic. Summarising like this can help people spot good things, bad things & missing things.

This blog is not my views. It is a summary of the report. None of the meaning has been changed, if meaning has been changed then that is my mistake. Sorry. Do let me know and I’ll correct as appropriate.

Summary of report

Improving how we use data across public services by creating a new public body, the GM Data-Sharing Authority or GM-Connect, will help:

In November 2014 £4m was allocated to create an approach to data, information and knowledge sharing across all public sector organisations in Greater Manchester. The report was developed over a 6 month period with help from KPMG and the Centre of Excellence for Information Sharing. The report asks Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) to:

This money will allow GM-Connect to employ 4 staff and bring in external help to develop the programme and business case. The rest of the £3.5m is expected to be spent by April 2017 on technology.

The report also provides information about the principles that GM-Connect will use (for example clear accountability to lead data sharing), the things it will do in its first year (for example a business case for an index of all Manchester residents), and why it is needed (for example to improve public services).

Why is GM-Connect needed

Public sector staff frequently say that data sharing is difficult, Greater Manchester wants to make it easier.

Greater Manchester consulted extensively with local stakeholders (the list of organisations is at the end of this document). Everyone consulted agreed with this plan. Both people in Manchester and independent external advisors believe Greater Manchester can be the UK’s leader in data sharing.

The recently published report on taking charge of our health and social care in Greater Manchester says we need to share data and find new ways of working.

We will use technology to understand patient needs, and develop services more efficiently and effectively as a result. We want people to have greater access, ownership and responsibility over their own data, generating multiple ways to interact with the health and social care system and putting people at the heart of how their information is collected, stored and used. More effective use of information across organisations, driven by patient ownership, will reduce duplication and ensure more speedy access to the right services.

We want technology to support self-management, from staying well to living well with long term conditions. We need to share data and information across organisations on a day to day basis to support assessment, triage and integrated multi agency case management.

The health and social care system in GM will work with the wider public sector on the implementation of our information sharing strategy GM-Connect. As part of the wider GM reform activity, GM- Connect will own the data sharing mandate and will deliver GM wide solutions for employees and people to access, update and analyse data.

GM-Connect will not just help public sector workers it will also help residents. Following a hip operation, the family of one man had to repeat his story to ten different agencies when trying to arrange their father’s support and aftercare. The family found a wheelchair and someone to help administer injections themselves. GM-Connect will fix this problem

With GM-Connect public sector staff will be automatically notified of important life events for residents such as young people becoming adults or when an adult becomes homeless.

GM-Connect will start with a small team

GM-Connect will be a small team that will set the strategy for data sharing for Greater Manchester and help people do it by providing guidance and technology. It will have the dual role of promoting better use of data and protecting information that Greater Manchester holds.

GM-Connect’s vision is:

To create value and insight across GM: supporting improved and more efficient services and improved outcomes for GM and residents, by breaking down information silos and barriers to sharing data.

The team will initially consist of 4 people reporting to an executive board. The team will be led by a new Programme Director and include a data guardian, a data analytics specialist and an information governance lead.

GM-Connect will have some key principles

GM-Connect will have the following key principles:

GM-Connect has a long term plan

The organisation will:

GM-Connect’s plan for the first year

By April 2016 GM-Connect will create the organisation and establish a governance board, executive board and delivery team.

By June 2016 the programme of work will be defined.

By March 2017 GM-Connect will deliver some initial projects; deliver a strategic technology solution; develop a detailed business case for implementation of whole programme; make sure the data sharing strategies align with other Greater Manchester strategies and secure long-term funding.

This approach has been used elsewhere

Federated approaches to data sharing have been successful elsewhere, for example New York’s Health and Human Services programme, Canada’s Service Alberta programme and Estonia. In Estonia citizens can perform any municipal or state transaction online.

In each of these cases there has been strong political leadership focussed on services not technology but it is equally important to protect data and have democratic oversight.

GM-Connect will have governance

The report proposes a governance and delivery framework.

A GM-Connect executive board co-chaired by the Greater Manchester Combined Authority lead for public service reform and the chair of the Health and Social Care Strategic Partnership board. All members of the executive board will be advocates of data sharing.

The board will have senior cross-representation covering health and social care, the Police and Crime Commissioner and Greater Manchester police force, Greater Manchester fire and rescue service, employment and skills, housing providers, local authorities, growth, Transport for Greater Manchester, New Economy and the National Centre of Excellence for Information Sharing.

The delivery team will report to this executive board.

Annex — the list of organisations consulted when producing this report

The full report lists the names and job titles of the people who were consulted. In this summary I have only recorded the names of organisations.

Contacting GM-Connect

The report names Andrew Lightfoot, a.lightfoot@manchester.gov.uk, as contact officer for the project.

I summarised this report to widen the debate

To reiterate stuff from the beginning. This summary is intended to make the report more accessible and allow more people to understand the plans of GM-Connect so that they can engage with this important topic. Summarising like this can help people spot good things, bad things & missing things.

This blog is not my views. It is a summary of the report. None of the meaning has been changed, if meaning has been changed then that is my mistake. Sorry. Do let me know and I’ll correct as appropriate.