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F265

Enhancing the use analysis and dissemination of healthcare information

Mid Staffs Inquiry · Report of the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust Public Inquiry · Issued 6 February 2013 · Addressed to: Department of Health and Social Care

Government responseDepartment of Health and Social Care: Accepted (Nov 2013)

DeliveryDHSC and NHS England say in progress (Feb 2026)Department of Health and Social Care says in progress (Feb 2015)

Recommendation, verbatim from the inquiry

●Inquiry recommendation

The Department of Health, the Information Centre and the Care Quality Commission should engage with each representative specialty organisation in order to consider how best to develop comparative statistics on the efficacy of treatment in that specialty, for publication and use in performance oversight, revalidation, and the promotion of patient knowledge and choice.

Mid Staffs Inquiry, Report of the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust Public Inquiry · 6 Feb 2013 Source PDF →

Published evidence summary

AI-generated evidence summary

In commentary from September 2024, published in February 2026, the Department of Health and Social Care and NHS England stated that patient choice had been incorporated into the NHS Long Term Plan, noting that standard contract terms require providers to publish acute referral services through a directory (DHSC and NHS England, Feb 2026). In May 2024, the Thirlwall Inquiry legal team noted the government's acceptance of the recommendation and summarised earlier updates regarding consultant outcomes publications (The Thirlwall Inquiry legal team, May 2024). Previously, in February 2015, the department reported that consultant outcome data had been published for several specialties, with work remaining in progress to identify what further data could feasibly be collected (Department of Health, Feb 2015).

AI-generated summary of the record on this page, checked by a second model and automatic checks, 26 Sep 2026.

Report-level response context

Government responded via "Hard Truths: The Journey to Putting Patients First" (2014), a single document covering all 290 recommendations with a blanket acceptance. Individual recommendation responses were not broken out.

Government response

●Department of Health and Social Care · Accepted · 19 Nov 2013

Speaker not recorded. Source: Department of Health, Hard Truths: the Journey to Putting Patients First, volume 2 (Cm 8777-II), November 2013

Accepted.
On behalf of NHS England, the Healthcare Quality Improvement Partnership has worked with specialist associations to develop the data referred to in recommendation 264 from selected national clinical and medical audits for consultants practising in these areas. The data is currently made available through NHS Choices websiteso that it can be used to meet a wide range of purposes. Providers will be expected to link to this data from their own websites from the summer of 2013.
NHS England will continue to work on how to improve the experience of this data through NHS Choices and promote patient knowledge and choice.

Response document: Hard Truths: The Journey to Putting Patients First. Volume Two of the Government Response to the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust Public Inquiry: Response to the Inquiry's Recommendations

Site note: This is volume two of "Hard Truths: The Journey to Putting Patients First" (Cm 8777-II), the government's response to the Inquiry's 290 recommendations, published by the Department of Health on GOV.UK on 19 November 2013 and dated to that day here. The PDF the row links to is the accessible edition, whose title page reads "January 2014". The Department of Health has been the Department of Health and Social Care since January 2018. The volume says it includes accounts from each of the national organisations the recommendations name, but it does not mark which passage each organisation wrote, so every row is filed under the Department that published it.

Delivery

●DHSC and NHS England say in progress · 27 Feb 2026

The NHS is committed to giving patients greater choice and control over how they receive their healthcare and is working hard to improve opportunities for patients to make informed choices about their care that best suit their needs and circumstances.

The promotion of patient knowledge and choice was highlighted in the NHS Long Term Plan in its ambition for more personalised care. Choice is one of the six components of the Comprehensive model of personalised Care.

Under the terms of the NHS Standard Contract –Service Conditions SC6 Choice and Referral states that providers are required to describe and publish all acute GP Referred Services in the NHS e- Referral Service (e-RS) through a Directory of Service. This allows referrers and patients to view relevant information on available services so that patients can make informed choices.

The NHS in England has offered patients choices on where they receive healthcare services since it was established, and these choices have been extended over time in legislation.

Choice is also highlighted as a key consideration in other priorities for the NHS, including in the NHS long term plan and as part of elective care recovery within the Delivery plan for tackling the COVID-19 backlog of elective care.

From: The Thirlwall Inquiry: Review of Implementation of Recommendations from Previous Inquiries into Healthcare Issues (version dated April 2025)

Site note: DHSC and NHS England's own account of progress, supplied to the Thirlwall Inquiry in September 2024 and printed in the Inquiry legal team's Review of Implementation of Recommendations from Previous Inquiries into Healthcare Issues (version dated April 2025, published 27 February 2026). It is not a finding of the Inquiry. Their reviewed extent of implementation reads “Implemented - Ongoing”. Table row: section 18.2 No. 265, PDF page 567.

●Department of Health and Social Care says in progress · 11 Feb 2015

Consultant Outcomes Publication began with ten national clinical audits in June 2013 which were also made available through the NHS Choices Website. Consultant data for neurosurgery and upper gastro-intestinal has also now been published. NHS England is looking into which outcomes data could be most usefully and feasibly collected to extend the programme.

NHS England will improve the way in which data is published and has supported the development of patient-friendly guidance which has been issued to professional societies. This outlines the indicators that must be included in consultant level reporting, such as patient involvement in publication and the linking of results for the department to an individual’s work at the trusts in which they practice.

From: Culture Change in the NHS supporting Annex (annex to Culture change in the NHS: applying the lessons of the Francis Inquiries)

Site note: This is the supporting annex published on 11 February 2015 with "Culture change in the NHS: applying the lessons of the Francis Inquiries" (Cm 9009), attached to the GOV.UK page as "Culture change in the NHS supporting annex". The annex has no title page; that title is GOV.UK's and the PDF's own. Its table has four columns (No., Recommendation, Hard Truths Government response, Progress update), and the row carries the Progress update cell. No column says which organisation wrote an update, so the row is filed under the Department of Health (now the Department of Health and Social Care), which published it.

What other bodies have found

In their own words. These do not change the delivery statement above.

●Thirlwall Inquiry legal team · 15 May 2024

Accepted by the Government.

In the January 2014 Hard Truths report, the Government referred to the Healthcare Quality Improvement Partnership working with specialist associations to develop the specialist data from selected national clinical and medical audits.

In the February 2015 Culture Change report, the Government referred to consultant-outcomes publications being made available through the NHS Choices website, with NHS England looking into which outcomes data could be most usefully and feasibly collected to extend the programme.

From: The Thirlwall Inquiry: Review of Implementation of Recommendations from Previous Inquiries into Healthcare Issues (version of 15 May 2024)

Site note: The Thirlwall Inquiry legal team's own notes on implementation, from its Review of Implementation of Recommendations from Previous Inquiries into Healthcare Issues (version of 15 May 2024). The review does not colour its Extent of Implementation cell for this recommendation green; it leaves the cell uncoloured where a recommendation was rejected, where evidence of implementation was insufficient, or where steps had been taken but implementation was not yet complete. Table row: section 16.2 No. 265, PDF page 521.

How this page is built

The recommendation and the government responses are verbatim from primary documents. Delivery statements and other bodies' findings are shown in their own words, each with its source. The summary is written by this site and labelled as such. The Index does not paraphrase sources or characterise intent; it records what has been published.