Creative use of existing clinical and health outcomes data to assess NHS performance in England: Part 1—performance indicators closely linked to clinical care

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Abstract
A recent BMJ editorial on whether the NHS was improving after recent government investments concluded that we did not have the data to answer the question reliably.1 The latest NHS chief executive's report commented on the constraints of current measures of quality and productivity and on the need for better measures of output and outcome extending beyond hospital data.2 The Atkinson review of measurement of government output and productivity also acknowledged, in an interim report, the lack of measures of output and outcome attributable to the NHS.3 Reports of multidisciplinary working groups commissioned by the Department of Health describe potential health outcome indicators for 10 health topics, but many require new data collection that could take several years.4