By Reuben Lewis, Director of Discover-NOW (17 November 2025)

Carepath Data+ is a Boehringer Ingelheim initiative. Boehringer Ingelheim provided funding and scientific expertise to this project utilising Carepath Data+ in North West London, which was delivered in collaboration with Discover-Now, part of the OneLondon partnership.

Cardio-renal-metabolic conditions are among the most significant contributors to long-term ill health in the UK. Yet many of the most severe outcomes are preventable, provided patients receive timely testing, diagnosis, and evidence-based treatment. Boehringer Ingelheim’s team set out to understand where delays or gaps may exist in patient care pathways in North West London, an area with high clinical complexity and ethnic diversity.

However, gaining visibility into patient journeys at the system level has historically been difficult. Data has often been fragmented across care settings, inaccessible for population-level analysis, or available only in national aggregated formats, offering limited ability to identify local patterns.

This is the challenge the Boehringer Ingelheim team aimed to solve: How can NHS system leaders be better supported to understand patient journeys, highlight treatment gaps, and ultimately improve patient outcomes?

The role of the London Secure Data Environment (SDE)

The Boehringer Ingelheim team partnered with Discover-NOW, part of the London Secure Data Environment (SDE). The London SDE provided access to linked primary and secondary care data for more than 228,000 patients across North West London, dating back to 2015. This linkage – held securely, de-identified, and governed- enabled a more complete understanding of patient experiences over time.

Using methodology adapted from the national CVDPREVENT audit, Boehringer Ingelheim and clinical partners examined diagnosis history, comorbidities, treatment initiation patterns, and recorded cardio-renal outcomes. This deep, system-level understanding formed the foundation for CarePath Data+, an interactive, visual tool designed to illuminate when and where delays in testing or treatment occur.

One of the key enablers was the support from the Discover-NOW and the London SDE’s applied analytics and clinical advisory teams. They helped translate NICE guidelines into clear, stepwise logic, ensuring the tool reflected real-world clinical pathways rather than theoretical best practice.

“The support provided by Discover-NOW during the initial phase of our project was invaluable. Their guidance helped us understand the dataset in depth and ensured the clinical logic was robust and implementable,” said a Boehringer Ingelheim Data Scientist involved in the project.

What changed as a result?

1. Access to data that was previously out of reach

Before the project, Boehringer Ingelheim did not have access to such granular, locally relevant, and linked patient-level data. The London SDE enabled them to work with data from an ethnically diverse patient population, producing insights that could speak directly to inequalities and service variation across neighbourhoods.

2. Fast, high quality analytics

Instead of navigating multiple unconnected datasets, analysts could evaluate whole patient journeys from first presentation to treatment outcomes. This significantly improved the accuracy and speed of pathway mapping and reduced time spent cleaning or reconciling data.

3. More relevant and actionable insights

The tool revealed where patients were being diagnosed late, not diagnosed at all, or not receiving guideline-recommended treatment. These insights are now informing discussions with Integrated Care Boards (ICB) in the NHS on future service improvement initiatives.

Impact for care pathway planning and patients

CarePath Data+ remains within the SDE environment, and the next steps will explore how best to support service leaders in London to apply the findings. Several key benefits are already clear:

• Earlier identification of at-risk patients can prevent escalation into severe cardio-renal outcomes.
• Greater emphasis on primary prevention may reduce pressure on hospitals.
• Localised insights into health inequities can support more targeted service planning.
• Clinicians and policymakers can visualise real-world pathways rather than relying on national aggregates or theoretical models.

A senior Boehringer Ingelheim spokesperson summarised the broader impact:

“CarePath Data+ shows how secure, responsible use of real-world data can make a meaningful difference. Working within the London SDE gave us a clearer, more nuanced view of patient pathways than national datasets allow. The insights gained here have the potential to shape more proactive care models, reduce avoidable complications, and ultimately improve patient lives.”

Looking ahead

With ongoing engagement planned with the Integrated Care Board, the goal is to ensure that findings from CarePath Data+ support real change in how cardio-renal-metabolic conditions are managed across the region.

This case demonstrates the value of secure, trusted data environments in enabling meaningful healthcare insights and highlights the importance of collaboration between life sciences companies and the NHS in improving outcomes for patients.

NP-GB-106608, November 2025