My PHIN Story is a series highlighting the people who make our organisation great.

Joshua Vaughan, Healthcare Data Analyst, shares how he got into healthcare and what his role involves.

So, Josh – what’s your career background?

At university, I studied human geography. It wasn’t exactly a clear path into a specific job, but I enjoyed it and it gave me a way of thinking about systems and how things fit together, which does help now, just in a different way. It also equipped me with the ability to critically think through problems.

That period after university is always a bit tricky if you don’t know what you want to do.

I was applying for lots of different things and trying to work out what I was good at, enjoyed - and would be paid to do! I ended up doing a mix of temporary jobs while I figured that out and taught English as a Foreign language for a while.

So how did you get into healthcare?

I got a job as a data administrator at Community Health Partnerships.

That’s where my data career really started. They manage primary healthcare estate, so it was about understanding how space is used and making sure it’s being used effectively.

It gave me a solid grounding in working with data, and over time my role developed into more of a junior data analyst position. That’s when I started doing more reporting and analysis and could really see my data career ahead of me.

And how did PHIN come into the picture?

I got contacted on LinkedIn, and it just happened to be good timing.

It felt like the logical next step. In my previous role I was doing some dashboard report building, but PHIN already had more developed data systems and a clearer focus on reporting in this way.

Healthcare was also a big part of the decision. I’ve always felt like I want to be in a job that at least doesn’t do any harm, and ideally does some good! PHIN being independent and not-for-profit was an important part of that as well.

What does your day-to-day actually look like?

It’s quite varied, but quite a lot of my day to day has been spent building Power BI reports.

That means taking the data we get from providers and turning it into something that’s easy to understand and actually useful. It’s about making quite complex datasets accessible so people can explore their own data properly.

I’ve also worked on big projects, like hospital benchmarking. That’s probably one of the highlights so far. It’s something providers really wanted – being able to compare themselves to others – so it’s been good to be part of delivering that.

Alongside that, I do more ad hoc analysis, support with data for articles and media requests, and look at ways of improving how we work with data overall.

How has your role evolved since you joined?

When I first joined, I went pretty much straight into Power BI reporting. That’s still a big part of the role, but since then I’ve also focused a lot more on automation.

I try to look at anything that’s manual and find a way to automate it. There were monthly reports that used to take a full day to put together, including QA, and now they take a maximum of ten minutes to refresh and for us to check them; and most can just refresh without the need for intervention. I always try to set up analysis to be repeatable from the outset as it doesn’t really take additional effort to design them this way.

I’ve also been using Python a lot more recently, because it’s really useful for both analysis and automation. It gives you more flexibility and makes it easier to apply statistical methods and build more customised visual outputs.

What do you enjoy most about your role?

I think it’s quite easy to have an impact.

We’re a smaller organisation, and we have a lot of data that not many people have access to in the same way. That means you can find new things in the data and turn them into something useful quite quickly.

There’s also a lot of flexibility in how you approach problems. If you’ve got an idea, you can usually try it out and see where it goes.

How would you describe the culture at PHIN?

People are nice, which makes a big difference, and there’s a good level of flexibility in how you work. If you’ve got an idea, you can usually take it forward and have an impact with it.

It’s also quite different from where I worked before. Things feel more visible here – if something’s produced, people actually see it and use it, which is not always the case in bigger organisations.

Is there anything people might not expect about working at PHIN?

I think people sometimes assume we’re the private healthcare industry itself.

But we’re independent – we don’t work for private healthcare companies, we report on the market. That’s probably something people don’t always realise from the outside.

What advice would you give to someone starting their career?

I’d say try to build useful skills and apply them within your work, especially things like AI and Python, because they’re only going to become more important.

And don’t worry if you don’t have everything figured out straight away. It takes time to work out what you actually want to do.

And finally – what would you say to someone thinking about joining PHIN?

Appreciate that your perspective as a newcomer to the organisation is really valuable, ask questions as to why something is done the way it is. It will put you in a strong position if you can suggest ways to improve existing processes.