Under her leadership, the NHS Covid-19 data store was built for NHS England, NHS Improvement and NHSX, bringing together multiple data sources into a single, secure location using the Palantir data integration platform Foundry. Aggregated data is cleansed, harmonised and used as the single source for analytics, ensuring data-led decisions have been effective.
In normal times, centralising data would have taken years, but Tang’s leadership ensured the scale and pace required while keeping privacy at the heart of the project. Dashboards are delivered to decision-makers that identify where the NHS is under strain and where interventions would be most effective. The data store has been the backbone of the vaccination programme, showing uptake by geography, gender, ethnicity, disability and deprivation to identify disparities.
Tang is committed to advancing the professional development of data and analytics staff working in health and care, recognising that a community was required to share knowledge and ways of working. This led to the founding of AnalystX with over 15,000 local, regional and national practitioners, crossing organisational boundaries. She believes it will continue to act as a powerhouse of data science and analytical techniques, forging partnerships with academia and seeking new areas for the application of data and analytics, all in support of the NHS long-term plan.
A strong and committed team has grown under her leadership, with over 700 practitioners using a new operating model, approaches and tools. She leads by example and has a vision to build the profile of analytics among national policy-makers and central government. Tang’s vision is for the NHS to be at the same level as tech companies when it comes to recruiting analysts.