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Minimising the burden of data collection
The Department is taking forward a number of actions to ensure the burden of data collection is minimised as much as possible, by removing overlap and duplication, and ensuring we only collect essential data.
Data Collection
It is important that we collect some data, to make sure that the necessary checks and balances are in place to ensure the safety of patients, and to provide accountability to the public for the quality of services provided. However, we know from front line feedback that the collection of certain information places a significant burden on the NHS.
Review of Central Returns (ROCR)
The Review of Central Returns (ROCR) team is charged with minimising the burden of all ongoing and one-off central information requirements on the NHS. It does this by regularly and rigorously reviewing all information requirements, and approving new requests for information - including one-off surveys, taking account of the NHS effort involved in supplying the data requested. Only collections that have been through the process above are added to the list of authorised central returns published on the Internet.
Data Streamlining Exercise
The Department has worked closely with Monitor and the Healthcare Commission to streamline the volume and frequency of data we collect from the NHS.
Review of NHS data collections
Data collection is a necessary but somewhat bureaucratic process. This project looked at two health communities to capture a high-level picture of data collection activity flowing through the NHS, irrespective of source. The Reducing Burdens team worked with the health communities and the IC to produce the results of this work and identify the most appropriate methods for sharing these with a wider audience.
NHS Information Centre for health and social care (IC)
The NHS Information Centre for health and social care (IC) is a new Special Health Authority, set up to rationalise and co-ordinate information collections across the health system in England.
UNIFY
In the past, NHS performance data has been recorded on a number of local systems to meet different reporting requirements. UNIFY has been developed to act as a single storage place for this information - so, once data is captured, it only needs to be input once, via the web. This reduces the burden by freeing the NHS up from multiple requests for additional information.
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