A partnership with NHSEI to deliver clinical quality improvement to the NHS
In May 2021 the NHSBSA ESR Service completed the ESR and National Consultant Information Programme (NCIP) pilot involving fifteen NHS trusts.
This pilot, utilising interface capability, paved the way for a national rollout programme, aiming to deliver the NCIP portal to consultants within 150 trusts by the end of 2021. The first tranche of the national roll out went live on 18th June 2021, with two other tranches planned for go live in September and December 2021.
What is NCIP and why is it needed?
The National Consultant Information Programme within NHS England and Improvement has developed an online NCIP portal, which provides NHS consultants with a single point of access to clinical outcomes information. It covers their whole area of practice and provides a mechanism to support safety monitoring. The portal does this by combining different sources of data including Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) and speciality audits (to name a few), into a single place. It is initially being made available to consultant surgeons working in eight participating specialities of ENT, general surgery, ophthalmology, oral & maxillofacial surgery, orthopaedics, paediatric surgery and urology. The portal enables NHS consultants to review information about their clinical activity and their patients’ outcomes against benchmarks, thus enabling them to drive quality improvements. It supports safety for patients and can be used for appraisals and revalidation.
Figure: NCIP delivers benefits to multiple stakeholders
By becoming the objective source of truth for consultants’ outcome data, it drives consultants to a better and improved quality of care which increases patient safety, streamlines the delivery of care and leads to savings made in potential litigation and unnecessary care.
Professor Sir Norman Williams – Chair of NCIP.
The NCIP Programme aims to make the clinically validated consultant level outcome metrics available to 28,000 consultants in the next 3 years.
ESRs role
The NHSBSA ESR team have developed a new interface for the NCIP programme. Following an NHS Trust authorising use of this interface (by raising an ESR service request (SR)), the NCIP programme is provided with the minimum data required to set up and manage access for consultants on the portal, including:
- Name,
- GMC number,
- Work email address, and
- Area of work.
The interface does not include pay related data. This link is the necessary first step to granting the consultant access to the online portal. As such, the ESR NCIP interface is integral to consultants’ access to the NCIP portal.
Without the amazing ESR team at the NHSBSA, we wouldn’t be in the position we are now. With the support of the ESR team, we are exceeding our roll-out and implementation expectations. This means that we are able to provide consultant surgeons with access to their outcomes data in a timely manner, not only generating but growing enthusiasm and engagement within the consultant community. Over the medium and longer term, this will enable us to realise more benefits and realise them earlier. We also know that should any issues arise; the NHS ESR team will be there on hand to guide and help as they have been to date. We are excited to continue this partnership and would like to thank the ESR team for all they are doing.
Marina Bogovac, Head of National Consultant Information Programme (NCIP)
Through its partnership with NCIP, the NHSBSA ESR Service continues its indispensable contribution to the NHS workforce landscape and helps to deliver the quality improvement to the wider NHS which has been identified in the NHS Long Term Plan.
NCIP and ESR partnership - the next steps
NCIP are in the process of reaching out to trusts for the upcoming tranches of roll out September and December and are inviting organisations to contact them at nhsi.ncip@nhs.net for expressions of interest. ESR will continue to work closely with NCIP to ensure that trusts that are identified for the two tranches are provided with the information they need to raise the service desk requests; which is a pre-requisite to adding the trust to the ESR NCIP interface.
For any information on the NCIP programme please visit https://www.gettingitrightfirsttime.co.uk/ncip/