Recommendation F269: Improving and assuring accuracy
From Report of the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust Public Inquiry, published 6 February 2013.
Recommendation
The only practical way of ensuring reasonable accuracy is vigilant auditing at local level of the data put into the system. This is important work, which must be continued and where possible improved.
In brief (written by this site)
In February 2026, the Department of Health and Social Care and NHS England stated that the recommendation was implemented and ongoing, reporting that the monthly Data Quality Maturity Index provides data submitters with "timely and transparent information" (DHSC and NHS England, Feb 2026). In May 2024, the Thirlwall Inquiry legal team noted that the government had accepted the recommendation and committed to continuing local clinical record audits alongside developing a national data quality assurance framework (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.
About this summary
This recommendation applies across many organisations. The record reflects central policy activity; adoption in individual organisations may vary.
Government response
Accepted.
It is the role of local providers to ensure that the accuracy of the data it generates and submits into the system. As such, existing requirements for local audit of clinical records and the external audit of clinical coding data quality are important and will continue.
However, the Health and Social Care Information Centre also has an important role to play regarding the assurance of the quality of the data it receives. It will assess the extent to which the information it collects meets the information standards and publish its findings routinely, when it publishes data or statistics.
The Health and Social Care Information Centre published the first national data quality report, The Quality of Nationally Submitted Health and Social Care Data in England – 2012 (July 2012) which highlighted a number of consistent areas which lead to poor quality data including:
• lack of standards and guidance;
• poor training and awareness of the impact of poor quality data;
• local system updates and changes;
• reorganisation and reconfiguration of services; and
• knowledge and use of the data and its quality.
The Health and Social Care Information Centre has published its second annual report, The Quality of Nationally Submitted Health and Social Care (September 2013) built on these areas.
The Health and Social Care Information Centre is also developing a National Data Quality Assurance Framework that will outline data quality standards and compliance with these standards. The Health and Social Care Information Centre will publish these assessments in order to incentivise improvement in the quality of data. In 2012–13 The Health and Social Care Information Centre will develop the National Data Quality Assurance Framework by, for example:
• defining, developing and expanding measures for assessing data quality to provide more comprehensive assessments in future years;
• reviewing and developing collection and reporting systems and providing consistent and visible outputs on the quality of data; and
• publishing data quality assessments on a more frequent basis in the year.
The Health and Social Care Information Centre also produce a range of data quality reports and dashboards to help local providers improve the quality of the data they return. These include, for example, in relation to the Secondary Uses Service, Hospital Episode Statistics and the Mental Health Minimum Data Set.
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 in progress (27 February 2026)
The Health and Social Care Act 2012 states that the statutory data quality role is to assess the extent to which the data it collects meets defined national standards and to publish the results of the assessments.
The Data Quality Maturity Index (DQMI) is a monthly publication about data quality in the NHS, which provides data submitters with timely and transparent information.
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. 269, PDF page 568-569.
Department of Health and Social Care says in progress (11 February 2015)
The next update to the Health and Social Care Information Centre’s National Data Quality Assurance Framework is expected to go live shortly. It uses one web page to give a single point of access to all the Health and Social Care Information Centre data quality information. It will include links to data quality metadata for data assets recorded in the Health and Social Care Information Centre’s information register. It will also give access to the data quality results output from the Health and Social Care Information Centre’s data quality assessment processes for each data provider expected to submit mandatory data collections. The Health and Social Care Information Centre published its third national report on data quality on 30 October 2014.
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 healthcare providers, 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 existing requirements for local audit of clinical records and external audit of clinical coding data would continue. The Health and Social Care information Centre would assess the extent to which the information it collected met the information standards and published its findings routinely. The Government also to the Health and Social Care Information Centre developing a National Data Quality Assurance Framework to outline data quality standards and compliance with them.
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. 269, PDF page 522-523.
Source
Responsible bodies
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