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Monitor publishes NHS foundation trusts’ accounts data and related information for 2013/14. 

Armchair auditors will be able to go through all foundation trusts’ finances with a fine-tooth comb after Monitor, the health sector regulator, released over a million lines of financial data including staff costs, income, and private finance initiative payments. This is Monitor’s most open and transparent annual data release yet.

The data is available to download for free from the regulator’s website and under the Government Open Licence via data.gov.uk.

One of the aims of releasing this data is that foundation trusts will be able to compare how much they are spending relative to their peers in order to be more efficient, therefore diverting more money to patient care.

Today’s data release has led to Monitor being awarded an Open Data Institute certificate which recognises its efforts in increasing its levels of transparency.

Jason Dorsett, Financial Reporting and Risk Director at Monitor said:

Monitor is committed to putting out data in a way that people can use to deliver new insights into the foundation trust sector that will benefit patients. We already make significant use of data but we want foundation trusts and others to innovate in ways we might not have thought of.

The dataset, containing NHS foundation trusts’ accounts and related information for 2013/14, makes data on individual NHS foundation trust accounts easier to find and use.

This data is the raw material from NHS foundation trusts’ annual reports which has been published in aggregate form by Monitor in the consolidated accounts.