NHS CB gets patient ‘insight’ via app

An ‘Insight Dashboard’ displaying patient experience data is being developed for use by the NHS Commissioning Board from April.

A paper being presented by national director of patients and information Tim Kelsey to an NHS CB meeting today says the dashboard will be available to the board on a monthly basis as an iPad application.

The dashboard will have two views – one based on data provided to the NHS about the experience of patients and another showing information on “conversations being had about the NHS."

It will provide a national overview with the ability to view individual organisations and incorporate as much near real-time data as possible, the report says.

The first view will include; information from NHS Choices on number of comments, responses and key issues; data from NHS 111 when available; friends and family test data; complaints data; staff survey friends and family test question; and patient survey data.

The second view will include data from NHS Choices, NHS 111, YouGov, Ipsos Mori and others.

It will cover; the volume of ‘conversations’; sentiment; trending topics; key words; and overall volume of comments by media type such as Twitter or mainstream news.

Different dashboards will be developed for care settings such as acute, mental health or primary care.

The paper says a huge number of online conversations about the NHS are taking place on the web and on social media, but not being measured by the NHS CB.

Each month approximately 500,000 unique online comments are made about the NHS, but the board is engaging in very few of these conversations

“The NHS engaging in these conversations will be hugely beneficial for patient experience and more broadly the reputation of the NHS,” it says.

The paper explains that it is possible to setup reports on any topic, from the NHS in general to individual events such as the Francis Report on the scandal at Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust, and these will be made available to the NHS CB via the dashboard.

The app will be incorporated into the ‘Integrated Intelligence Tool’, also being developed by the NHS CB.

This tool will be a portal for a set of indicators against which the NHS CB will judge how it is performing as a commissioner.

The paper being presented today also talks about the readiness of clinical commissioning groups to deliver on the requirement to use insight data from patients and the public to shape the commissioning and planning of services.

It says that most clinical commissioning groups have solid arrangements in respect of patient insight in place before they assume their full powers on 1 April.

However, about ten CCGs are likely to be authorised with conditions relating to patient insight.