Recommendation F25: Responsibility for regulating and monitoring compliance
From Report of the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust Public Inquiry, published 6 February 2013.
Recommendation
It should be considered the duty of all specialty professional bodies, ideally together with the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, to develop measures of outcome in relation to their work and to assist in the development of measures of standards compliance.
In brief (written by this site)
In February 2026, the Department of Health and Social Care and NHS England reported that the recommendation was partially implemented, with 99 percent of trusts enrolled in the National Consultant Information Programme, but noted that the platform is not in the public domain and establishing a single repository remains dependent on integrating private healthcare data (DHSC and NHS England, Feb 2026). Earlier, in May 2024, the Thirlwall Inquiry legal team noted the government's acceptance of the recommendation and recorded prior work to develop outcome measures (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. The record below is the sources' own words.
Government response
Accepted.
The Academy of Royal Medical Colleges and Faculties are committed to delivering consistent and high quality patient experiences and outcomes and will continue to support the design, implementation and review of clinical standards and the processes for assuring their use. The Academy will do this in a patient-focused way and in conjunction with key partners. The Academy of Royal Medical Colleges and Faculties have always taken an active leadership role in setting clinical service delivery standards. In addition, with individual Royal College and Faculty activity such as accreditation schemes and invited reviews and the Academy’s membership of the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence’s Implementation Collaborative, involvement in assuring compliance with clinical standards is continuing to strengthen.
In response to the Inquiry, the Academy and the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence are also working to agree and implement how medical and other Colleges will contribute to the development of outcomes measures. For example, on staff suitability and competence; evidence based tools for establishing what each service is likely to require as a minimum in terms of staff numbers and skill mix; and measures of standards compliance.
The Care Quality Commission will look at the implementation of the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence clinical and other guidelines as part of their inspection process and there is a move to greater transparency of clinical outcomes – NHS England has for the first time published clinical outcomes by consultant for ten medical specialties and has also begun to publish data on the friends and family test.
How this response relates to the recommendation
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.
Blanket government agreement does not establish acceptance or delivery by each addressee. Some response passages cover groups of recommendations.
Scope of the government response
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.
Delivery
DHSC and NHS England say partially delivered (27 February 2026)
See response to Recommendation 23 about the National Consultant Information Programme (NCIP).
The NCIP portal is a free data platform that allows consultants to review their own data: improving clinical quality, patient safety and supporting career development. It provides consultants with data covering their NHS practice wherever it is performed with high-quality, specialty-specific dashboards at patient level.
Nearly all NHS Trusts and NHS Foundation Trusts in England have been enrolled in NCIP (99%) and over 9,000 consultants now have access to the portal following universal access given across 7 surgical specialties.
NCIP is on track to give access to every consultant in 14 surgical specialties by 1 April 2025 with the intention of expanding into non-surgical specialties subsequently. Access to the portal has also been given to Medical Directors, Responsible Officers (who have governance responsibilities) and Trust Specialty Clinical Leads.
NCIP is now established as the visualisation platform for individual consultant outcome data but for very cogent reasons is not in the public domain. However, once a single repository is established and there is confidence in the accuracy of the data, discussions will take place with the profession as to what information is appropriate for publication.
Independent sector
The NCIP portal contains outcome data on NHS procedures no matter where they are performed i.e. both in NHS Trusts, NHS Foundation Trusts and the Independent Sector (IS) but excludes those procedures performed on private patients carried out in the Independent Sector. It was always intended that these data would come into NCIP via the Acute Data Alignment Programme (ADAPt), as supplied by the Private Healthcare Information Network.
ADAPt has now been subsumed into the Outcome and Registry Programme (ORP). A single repository can only be established when the private data flows into NCIP
Please also see response to recommendation 23 (Clinical outcomes).
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. 25, PDF page 436-437.
Department of Health and Social Care says in progress (11 February 2015)
The medical Royal Colleges and Faculties continue to develop standards within their specialist areas and provide direct input to the development of the National Institute for Care and Health Excellence’s guidance with the aim of driving improvement in health and patient care.
The Colleges are working with the Care Quality Commission on their contribution to the regulator’s standards and inspection processes. This work will be continuing during 2015.
The relevant Colleges have been actively involved with NHS England in the publication of consultant treatment outcomes data for specific specialties.
Work is also being taken forward to develop the scope and remit of Colleges’ supported service accreditation schemes and, particularly to ensure consistency of approach, including a common framework and set of standards for accreditation across services and specialties
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.
Site note: The Inquiry addressed this recommendation to the specialty professional bodies, not to the Department of Health. The annex gives this update in the Department's publication and does not say who wrote it, so the row is the Department's report of the progress made on 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)
This recommendation was accepted by the Government.
In the January 2014 Hard Truths report, the Government said that the Academy of Royal Medical Colleges and Faculties and the National Institute of Health and Care Excellence were working together to agree and implement how medical and other colleges would contribute to the development of outcome measures.
In the January 2014 Hard Truths report, the Government referred to the Royal Colleges working with the Care Quality Commission on their contribution to the regulator’s standards and inspection processes; the Colleges being involved with NHS England in the publication of consultant treatment outcomes data for specific specialities; and development of the Colleges’ supported service accreditation schemes.
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. 25, PDF page 397-398.
Source
Themes and tags
Who has spoken
- Department of Health and Social Care
Response, delivery statement - DHSC and NHS England
Delivery statement - Thirlwall Inquiry legal team
Finding