Imperial College London: ICL DFU uses HES data to identify measures of quality and safety in healthcare.

Data-sharing agreement from NHS Digital registers of approved data releases, 2014–2019. Evidence status: source reported.

Organisation: Imperial College London
Source reference: DARS-NIC-28095-S9N3P-v1.2
Jurisdiction: England
Licence: Open Government Licence v3.0, subject to NHS England terms and exclusions

Register reference: DARS-NIC-28095-S9N3P-v1.2
Agreement period: not published to no end date published
For commercial purposes (as marked in the register): Not stated
Release files listed by NHS England: 25

Data approved

Hospital Episode Statistics Accident and Emergency
Hospital Episode Statistics Admitted Patient Care
Hospital Episode Statistics Critical Care
Hospital Episode Statistics Outpatients

Objective, as published

ICL DFU uses HES data to identify measures of quality and safety in healthcare. Their research themes are around developing and validating indicators of quality and safety of healthcare, particularly by GP practice, consultant, and NHS Trust, showing variations in performance by unit, patient risk subgroups and risk prediction, risk adjustment and outlier detection for such indicators and variations and any other methodological aspects as they arise. Refer to section (Expected measurable benefits to health and/or social care including target date) to demonstrate the benefits ICL DFU work have brought to the Health and Social Care. Patient identifiers The Regulation 5 of the Health Service (Control of Patient Information) Regulations 2002 (s251) support letter confirms the final approval to receive confidential patient information for ICL DFU research database and identifiers to provide re-identification service to DFI customers and ALL NHS trusts. Identifiable data processed under CAG [15/CAG/0005] will be retained for a maximum of three years after which it should be destroyed or irreversibly pseudonymised on a rolling basis. The purpose of holding the patient identifiers is to allow hospitals to further investigate any alerts around poor or good performance and to help improve the quality and safety of healthcare delivery. ICL DFU does this by providing a re-identification service to acute NHS providers who are Dr Foster Limited’s customers. Dr Foster Limited has no access…

Expected benefits, as published

ICL DFU works with the Care Quality Commission (CQC), contributing to its surveillance remit using the same methods and data. The unit generates monthly mortality alerts since 2007, based on high thresholds [1]. This was pivotal in alerting the then Healthcare Commission (HCC) to problems at the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust between July and November 2007[2]. The resulting Public Inquiry recognised the role that the unit’s surveillance system of mortality alerts had to play in identifying Mid Staffs as an outlier [3]. Key recommendations, [4] reflecting the unit’s work, are that all healthcare provider organisations should develop and maintain systems which give effective real-time information on the performance of each of their services, specialist teams and consultants in relat…

Source: https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ukgwa/2019/http://content.digital.nhs.uk/media/23167/Data-Release-Register-September---November-2016/xls/Data_Release_Register__September_-_November_2016.xlsx. Captured 2026-10-30.

Limitations: Agreement as recorded in an NHS Digital register of approved data releases (2014–2019), retrieved from the UK Government Web Archive. That register lists releases made in its period and the agreement's purpose statement as it then stood; it gives no agreement dates, and the agreement may have changed since. Imported only where a paper quotes a reference no current register holds.