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The NHS Digital annual report and accounts for 2017-18 has been published.

The report, which covers the organisation’s achievements over the past financial year, including improving the reliability, resilience and performance of our core national IT and data services and significant progress in creating the new digital and data services.

Included in the report are five case studies that explore how this work is making a real difference for the public and health and care professionals.

Some of the key accomplishments reflected in the report include:

• achieved 99.97% average service availability across all our live services
• handled about 10 billion messages with 100% reliability on the NHS Spine,
• delivered 99.998% reliability for 1.2 million smartcard users, allowing authorised professionals to reliably access the secure information they need to do their jobs
• carried out independent on-site data security assessments in 200 NHS organisations and worked with NHS England, the Department of Health and Social Care, the National Cyber Security Centre to strengthen cyber resilience across health and care
• recorded 525 million visits to the NHS Choices website in 2017, including 330 million visits from people using mobile phones
• launched the NHS Apps Library and piloted NHS 111 Online, which provides digital access to NHS 111’s advice and triage services
• published 275 official statistics publications
• developed better data on health and care in England, including the Emergency Care Data Set developed with NHS England and the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, Patient Level Information and Costing Systems (PLICS) with NHS Improvement, and the Mental Health Services Data Set and the Community Data Set with NHS England
• delivered the National Data Opt-out Service, which puts the public in direct control of their data sharing preferences. The service sends people’s choices directly to NHS Digital, allowing us to make sure we uphold them
• increased the number of local authorities using Child Protection - Information Sharing (CP-IS), which flags vulnerable young people to health and social care teams, from 31% to 68%.
• improved the usability of core services like the Summary Care Record (for example, better flagging of additional patient information for clinicians) and the e-Referral Service (for example, making it easier for patients to manage their appointments).

Noel Gordon, NHS Digital Chairman, said: “I am hugely proud of NHS Digital’s role in helping our sector unlock our digital future and truly grateful to all 3,000 people in NHS Digital who have worked so hard to make that digital future a reality.

“The achievements outlined in this annual report are testament to their efforts and commitment.”

You can read a digital version of the annual report by clicking here.

NHS Digital must be quoted as the source of this information.