Centralised datasets

Trust-level Quality Improvement projects require meaningful data to identify areas for improvement. Obtaining accurate data is challenging, but becoming more achievable as the calibre of Electronic Patient Records improves. Centralised datasets, such as Hospital Episode Statistics, offer other means to access Trust-level data. National programmes such as Getting It Right First Time offer a convenient and clear way to present centralised data to Trusts in a meaningful and targeted way. Such data packs can be used to drive local-level Quality Improvement by identifying positive and negative outlying areas in performance, as benchmarked against peers to help drive actions leading to improved outcomes. Individuals in a Trust should be empowered to use centralised datasets to facilitate change management.