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Data across all NHS services made easily available to patients

Data about hospital and GP services, Clinical Commissioning Group outcomes and local authority health information is now available in easily-navigable, interactive format on the NHS Choices website.

Most of the 201 datasets were previously available on the NHS Choices site, apart from 40 indicators about GP practice standards and performance, used by the NHS to assess variation among practices. These indicators (listed below) were previously available through the Health and Social Care Information Centre and GP Patient Survey websites, and available in navigable format only to GPs through a password-protected portal.

Dr Mike Bewick, a GP and Deputy Medical Director at NHS England, said: “Making this data accessible and navigable helps patients understand how well their services are performing in the areas that matter to them most. This is a big step forward in transparency which will allow patients to take a full and active part in conversations about investment and improvement of their services, holding their providers and commissioners to account.

“This is part of our concerted efforts to have greater transparency in all NHS work: for the first time, in a co-ordinated way, patients and carers can access information more readily and feed back their views. This will help ensure patients are fully involved in determining the shape of services in the future, and help people to make decisions about their own care, based on the things that matter most to them.

“There is more to come – we are working in partnership with all parts of the NHS and with clinical professional groups to prepare even more data for patients and the public so that they can see in a format that is meaningful to them. We anticipate that, eventually, all of data collected across the NHS will be available to patients in the future. This is the first step in that process.”