Free-to-access platform – the Health Action Resource Platform (HARP) – brings together data metrics that healthcare providers can use to share, compare and contrast NHS performance data across major health condition outcomes and demographic markers.
The platform allows for several elements of data to be searched under different metrics, including condition, region, ethnicity and deprivation.
As a tool designed to highlight areas where chronic ethnic health inequalities persist, the platform content contains practical resources, videos, case studies, data dashboards and example guides of work being undertaken across the country to tackle disparities.
Key areas of focus include maternal and neonatal health, where outcomes for Black, Asian and mixed ethnicity women remain poor. Other showcased subject areas include mental health, cancer, cardiovascular disease and sickle cell disorder – where historic disparities are widely found across treatment and outcomes.
All metric data are presented at national (England), regional and ICS levels with data cut by ethnicity and deprivation for each region and healthcare system – supporting the digital transformation of the NHS. Over time, the platform will be expanded to cover wider topics.
The platform's key functions include:
- Downloadable raw data
- Availability of relevant policies, interviews, and other materials
- Streamlining and simplifying data, insight and action in one place
- An accessible and visually engaging platform.
Professor Habib Naqvi, chief executive at NHS Race and Health Observatory, said: ‘This unique platform offers insights which can lead to informed, targeted action to tackle inequalities at both local and national levels. We expect it be used as an interactive, online learning platform.
‘The platform presents another step towards creating a more efficient, agile, and technologically enabled NHS that will deliver care closer to people and further upstream.'
Designed to host a broad, diverse range of content, the Health Action Resource Platform is aimed at healthcare providers, voluntary, community and charitable sector organisations, government, health innovation networks, local authorities, researchers and academics.
Professor Stella Vig, national clinical director for elective care at NHS England, said: ‘The Health Action Resource Platform marks a turning point in how we understand and tackle health inequalities. For too long, disparities in outcomes have been hidden within fragmented data and inaccessible insights. By bringing data, practical tools, and real-world examples together in one accessible space, HARP empowers healthcare professionals, community organisations, and policymakers to act with clarity and confidence.
‘This platform is more than a digital tool, it is a call to action, equipping us with the knowledge and resources to build a fairer, healthier future for all communities.'
