The Transparency agenda and NCAPOP

In his transparency and open data letter to cabinet ministers on 7 July 2011, Prime Minister David Cameron restated the commitment to make available clinical audit data from the national audits within the National Clinical Audit and Patient Outcomes Programme (NCAPOP), commissioned and managed by HQIP. 

The National Lung Cancer Audit (NLCA), carried out by the NHS Information Centre, was identified as the pilot for this data release, and the first data was made available on the data.gov.uk website in December 2011.

This features a new, more flexible format to allow easier access and more dynamic capabilities. Previously only available as a PDF (therefore not allowing individual results to be highlighted and shared), the data is now released as CSV files, an open and standardised spreadsheet-style format.

• Full details of the NLCA transparency pliot >>
• NLCA data on data.gov.uk >>

This will now become standard practice for all NCAPOP audits reporting from April 2012 onwards.

To complement and bolster the Transparency agenda regarding national clinical audit data, HQIP is due to announce a raft of initiatives at the end of January 2011 aimed to drive accessibility of information in addition to availability. These will include:

• A timetable for emulating the NLCA pilot for all other NCAPOP audits
• Updated communications guidance to ensure information is as patient/public-friendly as possible
• A revised reporting schedule for NCAPOP audits to shorten the gap between audit data collection and publication

Please check this page, the News pages and the fortnightly HQIP eBulletin for further updates.