WGPlus (Archive)

Without accurate & timely data how does one know what needs doing and what has been achieved (or not)

With the launch of NHS England’s Mental Health 5 Year Forward View Dashboard, Paul Farmer, CE of Mind and chair of the NHS England Mental Health Taskforce, outlines why it marks a crucial first step in delivering the data & transparency so vital to the 5 Year Forward View for Mental Health.

Sadly, in many areas of mental health there is a significant lack of accurate & timely reported data to enable people to fully understand what services are available across the country and how well these are serving the needs of local people.  It must be a priority for NHS England to work together with commissioners and providers to fix this fast.

That’s why NHS England’s mental health dashboard, published for the first time on 27 October, is such a welcome first step to helping to track progress.  It brings some much needed openness & transparency to what has historically been a fairly opaque landscape.  And over time it will be a critical tool to see if the current rhetoric around commitments to improving mental health really do match the reality on the ground.
Researched Links:

NHS England:  Data transparency supports the drive to transform mental health

NHS Confederation: Mental health dashboard shows providers making progress despite huge financial pressures - (NHS England:  Harnessing technology to support service innovation)

NHS England:  A network to support the new models of care with information governance

New ratings published for mental health & maternity

Thousands to benefit from kick-start of mental health services transformation

Trust, control, transparency & ethics crucial to widespread use of data

AS: Shocking variation of hospital care for people with dementia exposed

A healthier outcome which could be self-financing

Will they extensively pilot IT in Carter’s ‘Model Hospital’?

Why has it taken so long to introduce?

Technology can help analyse historical health data to ‘locate’ problem areas

Beyond good intentions - The need to move from intention to action to manage information   

Free, Secure, Compliant UK Public Sector IT Recycling Service