Our Clinical indicators team develop, test, produce and then publish a range of indicators, separated into the following groups.
These are clinical indicators that provide comparative information for Clinical Commissioning Groups. These contribute to the five domains of the NHS Outcomes Framework (see below). Promising indicators are assessed by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence CCGOIS advisory committee, who make recommendations to NHS England about which should be included.
Thresholds or levels of ambition are not set centrally. Indicators are designed for local interpretation.
This is a collection of over 1,000 clinical indicators designed to provide a comprehensive overview of population health at a national, regional and local level. These are useful for:
- enabling local providers to compare the profile of their local area with other regions and national averages.
- understanding population health challenges in a local area and how they may be changing over time.
- exploring the diverse range of factors that influence health inequalities
The compendium includes a collection of 60 indicators called the Local Basket of Inequalities Indicators (LBOI), which helps organisations to measure health and other factors which influence health inequalities such as unemployment, poverty, crime and education.
The quality of services is measured by looking at:
- patient safety
- the effectiveness of treatments patients receive
- patient feedback about the care provided.
Reports are then created and published by each NHS funded provider (including the independent sector) and made available to the public. These reports contain 15 mandated indicators and an optional non-statutory indicator.
The performance of the provider against these indicators must be reported alongside the national average and a supporting commentary that may explain variation or the provider’s plans to improve in the future. These indicators are divided into the five domains of the NHS Outcomes Framework.
This workstream develops the sub indicators within each of 5 areas of quality:
These 50 indicators are designed to be of use to the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care to hold the NHS to account. They are made available for everyone to view the performance of the NHS and to increase transparency.
The Summary Hospital-level Mortality Indicator (SHMI) is the ratio between the actual number of patients who die following hospitalisation at the trust and the number that would be expected to die based on average English figures, given the characteristics of the patients treated there.
Trusts are categorised as having either a 'higher than expected', 'as expected' or 'lower than expected' number of deaths. This is one of several methods of measuring mortality and the methodology is subject to continuous review and development. Known issues are kept under review and are detailed in the SHMI methodology development log.
Further indicators, created in addition to the NHS Outcomes Framework are produced for presentation on this website.
This is a series of experimental statistics that we publish to provide information on how the NHS can effectively measure both improvement and variation in care provision across the week. This series includes indicators on the following topics:
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- mortality within 30 days of admission by week-part of admission to hospital
- emergency readmissions within seven days of discharge from hospital by day of discharge
- length of stay following an emergency admission to hospital by day of admission
The data for these indicators can be collected by other internal teams and sourced from external organisations, including NHS England, Public Health England and the Office for National Statistics.
