National Pulmonary Hypertension Audit

The audit's 13th Annual Report was published on 19 January 2023.  This report includes patients with a new referral between 1 April 2021 and 31 March 2022.

The audit measures the quality of care provided to people referred to pulmonary hypertension services in England (including patients referred from Wales) and Scotland, by answering a number of questions:

• are pulmonary hypertension services appropriate?
• are patients receiving the right treatment in a timely manner?
• what are the outcomes for patients with pulmonary hypertension?

The audit answers these questions through the measurement of a number of professionally agreed standards reported at a national level.

Benefits

Information from the audit is used by clinicians and commissioners to inform clinical practice, service development, improvement and commissioning activities.

The audit helps to inform pulmonary hypertension services which are which are nationally commissioned by NHS England and the National Services Division in Scotland.

NHS Digital is working in collaboration with senior clinicians from the specialist centres. The National Pulmonary Hypertension Audit is commissioned by NHS England.

The audit is included in quality accounts. Only the eight designated centres participate. Trusts should use the last published results to confirm participation. The audit does not report case ascertainment. 

There are 8 designated pulmonary hypertension centres in England and Scotland and all eight are registered to participate in the audit. 

• Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust
• Royal Papworth Hospital NHS Foundation Trust
• Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
• Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS Foundation Trust
• Royal Brompton and Harefield NHS Foundation Trust
• The Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
• Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust
• West Glasgow Hospitals University NHS Trust.

This audit is underpinned by sections 254(1), (3) and (6) of the Health and Social Care Act 2012 in England.

The Directions came into force on 3 March 2016.

The national data opt-out does not apply to this collection because the data is collected under directions.

The legal basis for the audit to link to ONS mortality data is section 42(4) of the Statistics and Registration Services Act 2007 (as amended by section 287 of the Health and Social Care Act 2012).

In Scotland, the audit is underpinned by sections 255(1) and 256(2) of the Health and Social Care Act 2012.  The non-mandatory request came into force in December 2020. 

Learn more about the audit data flows