PATHWAY COMMUNICATIONS LTD: This application can be summarised as having two purposes: 1.

Data-sharing agreement from NHS Digital registers of approved data releases, 2014–2019. Evidence status: source reported.

Organisation: PATHWAY COMMUNICATIONS LTD
Source reference: DARS-NIC-391618-M3X6R-v0.12
Jurisdiction: England
Licence: Open Government Licence v3.0, subject to NHS England terms and exclusions

Register reference: DARS-NIC-391618-M3X6R-v0.12
Agreement period: not published to no end date published
For commercial purposes (as marked in the register): Not stated
Release files listed by NHS England: 8

Data approved

Hospital Episode Statistics Admitted Patient Care
Hospital Episode Statistics Outpatients

Objective, as published

This application can be summarised as having two purposes: 1. Forecasting Demand for Ophthalmology Services 2. Ophthalmology Pathway Simulation The data will not be used for sales or marketing purposes. Pathway Communications customers for both purposes will be limited solely to NHS Trusts, NHS Foundation Trusts, CCGs, and CSUs. Pathway have been working on a pilot with 3 Trusts (South Warwickshire NHS Trust, Cambridge Hospital University NHS Foundation Trust and Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust), but the customer base is likely to expand (forecast 15-20 Trusts by the end of 2017). 1. Forecasting Pathway Communications has developed a Forecasting methodology to assist NHS managers to better understand demand for future services with forecast accuracies in the region of 90% (other typical models produce accuracies around 70%-80%). Users of the record level data will be restricted to Pathway Communications staff only. Static forecasting reports will be generated for customer organisations (NHS Trusts, NHS Foundation Trusts, CCGs, and CSUs) only. 2. Ophthalmology Pathway Simulation Pathway Communications build discrete event simulations of patient pathways. These simulations show all activity and resources consumed for that disease area. They enable the impact on resources of any change in services for patients, to be explored in a safe ‘virtual’ environment helping service leads to identify improvements in service provision, for the benefit of patients. This type of sim…

Expected benefits, as published

Without building the simulations and forecasting tool and populating them with the HES data it is impossible to predict what specific measurable benefits these Trusts will experience. However the key purpose of the development is to enable numerous different service improvement options to be explored and understood. The forecasting and ophthalmology patient pathway simulations will both provide useful tools for forecasting future activity for these Trusts. Often such forecasts take the Trust months to prepare and are not statistically validated, resulting in inaccurate predictions. The forecasting and simulations will replace this with a few minutes’ work. As far as Pathway Communications are aware, the combination of forecasting with simulation is not available to the NHS. The forecastin…

Source: https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ukgwa/2019/http://content.digital.nhs.uk/media/23861/Release-Register-December-16---February-17/xls/Release_Register__December_16_-_February_17.xlsx. Captured 2026-10-30.

Limitations: Agreement as recorded in an NHS Digital register of approved data releases (2014–2019), retrieved from the UK Government Web Archive. That register lists releases made in its period and the agreement's purpose statement as it then stood; it gives no agreement dates, and the agreement may have changed since. Imported only where a paper quotes a reference no current register holds.