Tim Kelsey, National Director for Patients and Information, NHS England, outlined the Insights Dashboard which will be formally launched for the NHS in November 2013

From NHS England Board Paper (available here)
 

http://www.england.nhs.uk

Prioritising patients in every decision we make

The purpose of this paper is to update the Board on progress made in the development of the Insight Dashboard and proposed next steps.

Key Issues and Recommendations:

The Board is committed to: promoting and upholding the values, rights and pledges enshrined within the

NHS Constitution;

putting patients and the public at the heart of everything it does;

promoting and embedding a truly customer focused culture within the NHS;

andensuring that patient and public voice is not just heard, but actively used to

inform commissioning decisions taken by the Board and CCGs.

The Board is therefore creating an Insight Dashboard, which brings together a range of regularly updated views, feedback and comment from patients and the public about the NHS. The Insight Dashboard will be web based and publicly available, demonstrating the Board’s commitment to both transparency and active patient and public participation in shaping health services.

Actions Required by Board Members:

To note progress in the development of the Insight Dashboard (which will bedemonstrated at the Board meeting).

To agree proposed next steps in taking the dashboard forward.

2.Prioritising patients in every decision we make

The Insight Dashboard

Context

1. NHS England is committed to prioritising patients in every decision it makes. This will require regular and updated insight into what patients and the public think about NHS services, so that both CCGs and NHS England can ensure their commissioning plans are informed by patient and public views.

2. NHS England is also committed to transparency of information, to enable the active participation of patients in decisions regarding their own healthcare and of the public in decisions about the nature of the NHS services they use. Once developed and tested, the Insight Dashboard will be a publicly available

tool to enhance both transparency and participation; it will be a rich source of information to help people understand what their fellow patients and citizens are saying about health services.

Background

3. The February board paper introduced the concept of an Insight Dashboard which would utilise data from a variety of sources to provide a triangulated view of:

the experiences people have of NHS services and care; and views/conversations people hold or are having about the NHS.

4. A web-based beta dashboard has now been developed and will be tested over the next few months to ascertain the usefulness of measures included the presentational format of the data and to gain views on whether additional work needs to be undertaken to make this a meaningful tool for the public to utilise effectively.

5. A summary of data sets currently included in the dashboard, appear below:

Experiences of NHS services and care

Whether patients would recommend services to friends and family (currently available for trusts in the Midlands and East and available for all trusts in England from July);

Comments that patients are making about the NHS (from NHS Choices, which includes comments patients make through other routes, such as Patient Opinion);

What patients are complaining about (from the annual complaints return);

How satisfied patients are with NHS services (from the inpatientsurvey); and

Whether staff would recommend services to friends and family (from the NHS annual staff survey. An additional monthly data flow from a sample of NHS staff will be available as soon as possible during

2013/14).

Views/conversations about the NHS

Trending topics in healthcare;

Key themes the public engaged with about the NHS on social media;

How satisfied citizens are with NHS services; and Public perceptions of the NHS brand.

6. A number of data feeds contained (supplied by YouGov) within the dashboard are new and have not been seen before. These are as follows:

Daily perception data on key measures including satisfaction,

recommendation, general impression and corporate reputation;

Weekly survey data (sample size approx. 2,000 people per month) on which NHS services have been used, how satisfied people were with services and reasons for satisfaction/dissatisfaction; and

Monthly staff satisfaction data - this data will cover both satisfaction in their place of work and views on the NHS

7. The Insight Dashboard will provide a never before seen view of experiences and views about the NHS from patients, the public and NHS staff.

Proposed next steps in developing the Insight Dashboard

8. As mentioned previously, a beta (test) dashboard has now been developed which is likely to require further refinement. A procurement process will be required to secure a partner going forward to further develop and update the Insight Dashboard. The proposed next steps (which have taken into consideration the likely timescales for procurement) are as follows:

Testing within NHS England (May

9. It is proposed that the dashboard is made available to staff within NHS England to provide feedback on the tool and suggestions for further refinement. A series of workshops will be arranged to demonstrate the tool to key groups of staff working within NHS England.

Publication and stakeholder engagement (August - November)

10. It is proposed that the Insight Dashboard is made publicly available in August with an open invitation to a wide range of stakeholders to test and comment on it. This will include patients and the public (both directly and via voluntary sector organisations that advocate on their behalf); other parts of the NHS

and arm’s length bodies intermediaries and other organisations in the media, research and independent sectors. An August publication will also enable the national friends and family test data to be included for the first time.

Insight Dashboard formal launch (November)

11. A finalised Insight Dashboard can then be formally launched alongside the Integrated Customer Service Platform, which will replace NHS Choices in the autumn. This will ensure it has a high profile presence and is easily accessible by users of this service (currently nearly 20 million visits a month to

NHS Choices).operating in the health sector; information  

Maintaining interest in the dashboard

12. As a number of data sets within the dashboard contain much rich data but are annual, it is proposed that on a weekly basis a different area/topic is put in the spotlight. By providing weekly changes to the main focus dashboard, it is more likely to retain interest from users. The three main annual data sets

which contain a wide variety of data and will be treated like this are as follows:

Patient survey data;

Complaints data; and

Staff survey data

13. As new, more real time data flows become available (such as patient and public feedback through the Integrated Customer Service Platform) these will be incorporated into the dashboard and included in the rotating spotlight areas. Where possible, data captured in this way in real time will be immediately fed into the dashboard so that it is constantly updated.

Conclusion

14. The Board is asked to note the contents of this paper, including the live demonstration of the Insight Dashboard and to discuss and agree these proposed next steps.

Tim Kelsey

National Director for Patients and Information

April 2013

NHS England website: