The Children’s Hospital Alliance is thrilled to have been Highly Commended at this year’s Florence Nightingale Award for Excellence in Health and Care Analytics at the Statistical Excellence awards ceremony in London. Named in honour of Florence Nightingale, the Royal Statistical Society’s first female fellow and a pioneer of data visualisation, this award celebrates data analysts in the health and care sector whose work has led to better health outcomes across the UK.
Now in its sixth year, the award is supported by the Health Foundation, an independent charitable organisation working to build a healthier UK.
The CHA’s Highly Commended project was ‘Collaborative Benchmarking: Driving Shared Learning and Responsive Children and Young People Services”.
This addressed long-standing gaps in comparative data for specialist children’s hospitals, after the CHA launched the first dedicated benchmarking programme across 13 leading paediatric centres in England. By combining detailed patient-level activity with public data on capacity, workforce, and inequalities, the programme revealed critical paediatric trends often hidden in adult-focused reporting. More than just analytics, it fosters collaboration by enabling trusts to explore findings with the analytics team and connect with peers to share best practices.
Alexandra Norrish, managing director of the CHA, said: “I am very proud of the team for being highly commended and for their collaborative work and detailed analytics, which has helped support children’s hospitals across England making a difference to the care and treatment they provide to babies, children and young people. Well done, team!”
The judges were impressed with how this project has driven data-informed improvements and supported strategic decision-making, with its effective communication to decision-makers. It has strengthened advocacy for children and young people’s services at all levels.
Dr Sarah Cumbers, chief executive of the Royal Statistical Society, said: ‘This year’s winners exemplify the power of data to drive meaningful change in our health and care services. Their work not only demonstrates statistical excellence, but also shows how transparent, collaborative analytics can lead to better outcomes for patients and communities across the UK.’
The CHA would like to thank our member trusts, Edge Health, who drive our analytics, and NHS England’s children and young people team and Getting It Right First Time (GIRFT), who provide us with data access.