Healthcare Analytics for Northern Ireland HSC Trusts

Northern Ireland's Health and Social Care system is structured around five HSC Trusts — Belfast, Northern, South Eastern, Southern, and Western — alongside the Public Health Agency, the Business Services Organisation, and the Patient and Client Council. Unlike any other part of the United Kingdom, Northern Ireland's HSC Trusts are integrated organisations: they combine hospital services, community health provision, and social care — including children's services, adult social care, and disability services — within the same operational and governance structure. This integration creates analytical complexity that no off-the-shelf NHS England analytics tool is designed to address. Social care activity, domiciliary care hours, looked-after children placements, and acute hospital bed days must all be brought together to understand the true resource footprint of a patient cohort or population segment.

Mental health is Northern Ireland's most pressing public health challenge. Approximately one in five adults — the highest proportion in the United Kingdom — has a diagnosable mental health condition, a legacy of the Troubles that continues to manifest in elevated rates of post-traumatic stress, depression, and anxiety across multiple generations. Mental health waiting times in Northern Ireland are the longest in the UK: tens of thousands of patients wait more than a year for Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) and adult community mental health assessments. The HSC also navigates political instability — periods without a functioning Executive have created funding uncertainty that complicates multi-year analytics investment decisions for all five Trusts. Vizier's rapid deployment model — operational within days rather than months — is particularly suited to environments where long-term procurement confidence is constrained.

Northern Ireland's HSC organisations are governed by the Department of Health (Northern Ireland) — distinct from both NHS England and NHS Scotland governance structures. The Regulation and Quality Improvement Authority (RQIA) fulfils the inspection and scrutiny function equivalent to the CQC in England or HIW in Wales, with a remit that explicitly covers social care as well as healthcare services. The Public Health Agency provides epidemiological intelligence and health protection functions, while the Business Services Organisation delivers shared services including the HSC Prescribing Directorate and Information Analytics Directorate.

HSC Trusts are subject to UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018 as applied in Northern Ireland, with the Information Commissioner's Office retaining jurisdiction. Performance is reported against the HSC Performance Management Framework, which encompasses waiting times for elective, outpatient, and mental health services alongside social care metrics. The HSC's unique cross-border dimension means that some data sharing arrangements with the Republic of Ireland are governed by bilateral agreements under the North South Ministerial Council's health cooperation mandate.