Figures you can trust: briefing on data quality in the NHS
On 9 April 2009, the Audit Commission published a briefing (Figures you can trust) which insists that the quality of data in the NHS is often not what it should be to meet the demands now placed on it.
The briefing stresses that good quality information underpins the delivery of effective patient care. It highlights a recognisable shift of emphasis within the NHS towards measuring and publishing quality outcome indicators, thereby providing additional information for patients to enable them to choose the service that best suits them. The briefing notes that most hospital funding is already dependent on accurate activity and costing data.
The Audit Commission reviews the results of current data quality programmes and assesses how NHS trust and foundation trust boards assure themselves of the accuracy of their own data. It proposes five steps to improve data quality in the NHS:
- Clear leadership from the Department of Health, senior managers, clinicians and regulators to reinforce the need for reliable data when examining quality metrics and the quality and effectiveness of patient care.
- Greater clinical engagement helped by the development of quality metrics.
- A stronger interest from boards who should assure themselves of the quality of data they are using and providing. Prime responsibility for the quality of data rests with the organisation producing it.
- External monitoring and review, important components of any programme. If quality accounts are to have the same status as financial accounts, and if the public are to have confidence in the data that they contain, the quality of that data should be subject to external, as well as internal, validation and assurance.
- More support for organisations such as that planned under the NHS Information Centre’s new data quality programme.
Figures you can trust: briefing on data quality in the NHS
