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F272

Improving and assuring accuracy

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 partially delivered (Feb 2026)Department of Health and Social Care says in progress (Feb 2015)

Recommendation, verbatim from the inquiry

●Inquiry recommendation

There is a demonstrable need for an accreditation system to be available for healthcare-relevant statistical methodologies. The power to create an accreditation scheme has been included in the Health and Social Care Act 2012, it should be used as soon as practicable.

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 recorded the recommendation as partially implemented, stating that statutory powers facilitate accreditation and that bodies such as the Data Alliance Partnership Board assure information standards (DHSC and NHS England, Feb 2026). Prior to that, the Thirlwall Inquiry legal team found in May 2024 that it could not "find any evidence this was implemented" by either the Health and Social Care Information Centre or its successor, NHS Digital (The Thirlwall Inquiry legal team, May 2024).

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.
The Health and Social Care Act 2012 established powers for the Health and Social Care Information Centre to establish an accreditation scheme for information service providers. The Act allows the Health and Social Care Information Centre to establish a procedure, and set of criteria, for accrediting any information service providers.
The Health and Social Care Information Centre set out its objectives for 2013–14 in its publication Informing Better Care (2013) including the delivery of all of its statutory responsibilities as set out in the Health and Social Care Act 2012. The ambitious program includes the delivery of a safe transition from the existing information standards products and services in to the new operating model and the fulfillment of its data quality assurance roles. Given the scope of the program the Health and Social Care Information Centre has committed to deliver, they will not take forward an accreditation system this financial year but will consider how such a system can be taken forward in 2014–15.

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 partially delivered · 27 Feb 2026

The Health and Social Care Act 2012 established and empowered regulatory bodies that have the authority to oversee the quality and standards of healthcare services, which can facilitate the creation or endorsement of an accreditation system (e.g. role of the CQC).

Information standards are used to ensure data can be understood across the sector, and used for planning and monitoring as well as for good patient care. The Data Alliance Partnership Board (DAPB) assures the quality of information standards.

The Advisory Group for Data (AGD) provides oversight of NHS England's processes to ensure they are appropriate for governing the receipt, processing and publication of data that does not compromise confidentiality and maximises the use of information.

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 “Partially implemented – Ongoing”. Table row: section 18.2 No. 272, PDF page 570.

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

The Health and Social Care Information Centre hosts the Indicator Assurance Service which quality assures the construction of health indicators. The Assurance service is used to quality assure all new indicators put forward for inclusion in both the NHS Outcomes Framework and Clinical Commissioning Group Outcomes Indicator Set. The Health and Social Care Information Centre hosts the Indicator Assurance Service which quality assures the construction of health indicators. The Assurance service is used to quality assure all new indicators put forward for inclusion in both the NHS Outcomes Framework and Clinical Commissioning Group Outcomes Indicator Set. The Service has also assured other indicators, not included in established Frameworks, such as the Summary Hospital-level Mortality Indicator, Patient Reported Outcome Measures and Accident and Emergency care quality indicators. Indicators are assured via a collaborative process that draws upon the expertise of colleagues from a broad range of health and social care organisations. To date there have been 231 indicators put forward for appraisal by the Indicator Assurance Service, of which 106 have been assured as being suitable for inclusion in the Library of Quality Assured Indicators. A further 68 indicators are in the process of being appraised under the assurance process. Once approved, the indicators are included in the national Library of Quality Assured Indicators.

The Health and Social Care Information Centre is working with its national partners in the National Information Board which has responsibilities relating to health and care information standards and technologies. This collaborative work is ongoing to develop a new informatics strategy, and will use that to set out its proposals for ensuring more systematic use of the indicator assurance function. The service is already available to commercial intermediaries and public sector organisations, but is not yet mandatory. The Health and Social Care Information Centre will therefore need to explore the use of levers and incentives that could be applied so that the service can be used without impeding the development of the commercial analytics market.

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.

Cannot find any evidence this was implemented, either by the Health and Social Care Information Centre or its successor, NHS Digital.

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. 272, PDF page 524.

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.