National Clinical Audit of Psychosis (NCAP)

Data-sharing agreement from NHS England Data Uses Register. Evidence status: source reported.

Organisation: ROYAL COLLEGE OF PSYCHIATRISTS
Published: 2026-10-23
Source reference: DARS-NIC-209200-S9H5R-v6.4
Jurisdiction: England
Licence: Open Government Licence v3.0, subject to NHS England terms and exclusions

The Healthcare Quality Improvement Partnership (HQIP) requires access to NHS England data for the National Clinical Audit of Psychosis (NCAP), specifically Early Intervention in Psychosis (EIP) routine data. HQIP commissions NCAP on behalf of the National Clinical Audit and Patient Outcomes Programme (NCAPOP) and is involved in decisions about the processing of the data. Purpose of the audit: The aim of NCAP is to improve the quality of care that NHS mental health services provide to people with psychosis. This is achieved through analysis of routinely collected national datasets to a…

Register reference: DARS-NIC-209200-S9H5R-v6.4
Applicant type: Academic
Data controllers: HEALTHCARE QUALITY IMPROVEMENT PARTNERSHIP (HQIP), NHS ENGLAND - X26
Agreement period: 2026-10-23 to 2027-11-22
For commercial purposes (as marked in the register): No
Release files listed by NHS England: 0

Data approved

Civil Registrations of Death
Emergency Care Data Set (ECDS)
Hospital Episode Statistics Admitted Patient Care (HES APC)
Mental Health Services Data Set (MHSDS)

Objective, as published

Expected benefits, as published

The transition to the use of routinely collected data for NCAP has reduced the burden on services, as teams are no longer required to collect bespoke audit data to evidence performance. This enables clinical time and resources to be focused on delivering patient care. The use of the Mental Health Services Data Set (MHSDS) as the primary data source for the audit is also supporting improvements in the quality, completeness and consistency of national mental health data. Ongoing work by RCPsych has identified variation in data recording across services, and the audit continues to support improvements in data quality through ongoing engagement with NHS England and participating services, including the use of appropriate clinical coding standards. Improved data quality allows for a more accur…

Benefits reported by the applicant

The Royal College of Psychiatrists has now successfully transitioned the NCAP audit from the collection of bespoke audit data to the use of routinely collected data from the Mental Health Services Data Set (MHSDS). This transition has already delivered measurable benefits for participating services. The use of routinely collected data has reduced the burden on clinical teams, as services are no longer required to complete additional bespoke data submissions. This has enabled services to reallocate time and resources towards delivering care to patients. The implementation of this approach has also supported early improvements in the quality and completeness of data submitted to the MHSDS. Initial findings suggest small improvements in data recording, and ongoing engagement with NHS England…

This is the applicant's own account; OpenHDI has not verified it.

Source: https://digital.nhs.uk/services/data-access-request-service-dars/data-uses-register. Captured 2026-11-05.

Limitations: Data-sharing agreement as published in NHS England's Data Uses Register. An agreement permits access; actual data releases are listed separately. Expected and yielded benefits are as reported by the applicant and have not been independently verified. Long text fields can be cut off in NHS England's spreadsheet export at Excel's 32,767-character cell limit.