The PSC case-studies: entry

Using Value-Based Healthcare Analytics to Improve Cancer Care Outcomes and Efficiency

Velindre University NHS Trust aimed to transform healthcare delivery through a Value-Based Healthcare program.

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The PSC partnered with Velindre University NHS Trust to improve cancer care delivery through value-based healthcare analytics. We supported Velindre to develop data analytics solutions to transform clinical practice through data-driven decision-making. Through close collaboration with clinicians, data teams, and operational staff, the initiative produced interactive dashboards analysing patient outcomes, referral patterns, service activities, pathway costs, and performance metrics. This transformation has already demonstrated benefits, including validated treatment decisions, improved resource allocation, and enhanced patient care delivery, and has been shortlisted for Most Impactful Use of Technology on Clinical Practice by the HSJ Partnership Awards 2025.

Using Value-Based Healthcare Analytics to Improve Cancer Care Outcomes and Efficiency

What was the challenge? 

Velindre Cancer Service (like many cancer services) was facing significant challenges in cancer care delivery, including increased demand for cancer services and financial constraints. 

The partnership between The PSC and Velindre University NHS Trust aimed to implement value-based healthcare analytics capabilities to address these critical challenges. The project's overarching goals and technological solutions were to transform clinical practice through data-driven decision-making. The project sought to empower clinical and operational leads with real-time insights, enhancing outcomes, increasing efficiency, and fostering value-based healthcare principles among staff. 

What did The PSC and Velindre do? 

A key aim of the project was the creation of a proof-of-concept value-based healthcare dashboard for a prioritised SST (Urology). We then scaled its priority functionality across all SSTs as live dashboards, providing widespread access to crucial data on patient outcomes, demand and activity, targets, and cost of patient pathways. 

Velindre’s clinicians and members of the Data and Insights, operations, and finance teams were involved throughout development. This included: 

  • Regular user testing sessions and clinical review sessions, ensuring continuous feedback and engagement. 
  • Leadership presentations to showcase progress and gather support, facilitated by a dedicated leadership group that guided the project through rapid development cycles. 
  • Close collaboration between The PSC's developers and Velindre's Data and Insights team, with the dashboard being developed directly within Velindre's existing on-premise Data Cubes. 

The final, live dashboard featured approximately 70 interactive visuals, which enabled analysis of: 

  • Patient Health Outcomes: Survival rates, toxicities, patient reported outcome measures, complications and other outcomes, enabling clinicians to assess treatment efficacy and compare cohorts. 
  • Referrals from Health Boards: Referral trends, helping operational teams optimise patient flow and support conversations with commissioners. 
  • Service Activity: Service activities (e.g. radiotherapy) and points of delivery (e.g. outpatients) allowing managers to improve service planning. 
  • Pathway Cost: Provide detailed costing data, enabling front-line teams to support the organisation’s financial sustainability. 
  • Target Performance: Display waiting list metrics and key worker allocation, allowing leadership to monitor performance and identify bottlenecks. 

What did Velindre University NHS Trust achieve? 

In the six months since its launch, the dashboard has already yielded a number of positive outcomes. 

The dashboard enabled the urology SST to compare radiotherapy treatment schedules for curative intent prostate cancer. The analysis confirmed that a shorter schedule radiotherapy (20 treatments) had equivalent outcomes to the longer one (37 treatments) and to landmark clinical trials. The dashboard also evidenced that the new shorter schedule reduced the treatment costs by approximately 40% (>£2,000 per patient). The Urology Lead described this as a real world example of the utility of survival analysis in the dashboard. 

The dashboard also informed treatment selection for metastatic renal cell carcinoma, where two treatments are currently NICE approved for second line therapy after prior targeted therapy (nivolumab and cabozantinib). These treatments have not been compared head-to-head in a randomised controlled trial and therefore clinical equipoise exists with regard to treatment selection. To explore survival with these two treatments the dashboard was used to generate overall survival curves for patient cohorts who had received the relevant treatments. A possible superior outcome was observed with nivolumab. This information has prompted further research. 

Other evidenced benefits include: 

  • Benchmarked survival outcomes in prostate cancer, showing institutional results match or exceed clinical trials 
  • Monitored new treatment safety through real-time PROMs and toxicity assessments 
  • Analysed prostate cancer outpatient and systemic anti-cancer therapy (SACT) trends, revealing doubled workload since 2019, supporting resource requests 
  • Improved data quality awareness, promoting standardised data entry practices 
  • Validated a change in practice to ambulatory feeding tubes insertions, confirming no increase in inpatient admissions. 
  • Reviewed trends in workload from new, follow-up and SACT outpatient visits, enabling workforce forward planning and consultant job planning decisions.

Long-term impact 

This collaborative project between The PSC and Velindre has significantly enhanced data-driven decision-making capabilities across all SSTs, driving improvements in patient care and resource allocation within a value-based healthcare framework. 

The initiative addressed a critical need for accessible, comprehensive data insights. By scaling a proof-of-concept dashboard to cover all SSTs, the project delivered a wide variety of metrics and visuals to clinical and operational leads in a short timeframe. 

The PSC Digital and Strategy teams 

The PSC exists to make public services brilliant. We work with our clients, using value-based healthcare, data science and user-centred design to develop effective healthcare strategies and co-create new digital services. If you would like to speak to us about our value-based healthcare analytics work, please email hello@thepsc.co.ukdavid.chappell@thepsc.co.uk, or danny.silk@thepsc.co.uk

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