Indicators Projects/Products

Acute Indicators

Online dashboard using nationally available data for English Acute Trusts

An interactive dashboard is available for English Acute Trusts that offers a concise yet insightful overview of each Trust’s structure and performance, using data from nationally available sources. By benchmarking against all other Acute Trusts in England, this dashboard facilitates a deeper understanding of your Trust’s unique position, identifying both strengths and areas for improvement.

Example metrics include:

• Emergency care waiting times

• Elective care waiting times

• Cancer waiting times

• Diagnostic waiting times

• Referrals received

• Waiting times

• Pressure ulcer acquired

• Referrals received

• Productivity measures

• Waiting times

This monthly data collection project includes over 40 metrics. Covering patient safety and quality, access,  productivity, workforce and finance, to track ongoing changes in the delivery of community services, community hospitals and intermediate care. Participants are able to see how they compare to their peers each month, as well as seeing how their trend over time compares to the sample trend. PDF reports are produced monthly as well as the online data explorer.

National Indicators

This quarterly data collection project commenced in April 2020 as a COVID-19 dashboard, enabling participants to track the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on mental health, CYPMHS and learning disabilities services, both within their organisation and in comparison to the wider UK dataset. The month-on-month data is collected quarterly, enabling participants to see month-on-month trends, for themselves and the sample.

As well as other metrics including Cost Improvements Plans, use of virtual contacts, use of bank and agency staff, medication errors and falls.

Online dashboard using nationally available data for England

The National Indicators data explorer draws from around 40 publicly available data sources, presenting the information in a series of easy-to-navigate charts. By bringing together multiple data sources, you are easily able to interrogate a range of data at once. The aim of the National Indicators Tool is to support healthcare leaders in developing strategic planning operational priorities such as quality improvement and transformation programmes. 

NB. The tool currently includes majority English data, but we are working with colleagues in Wales to incorporate Welsh data, there are already a limited selection of metrics available. The hope is to include Northern Irish and Scottish data in the future.

The online interactive tool includes over 800 metrics

Annual Projects/Products

Adult Community Services Project

Community project for any providers of adult community services

Adult community services have been benchmarked over many years by NHSBN. 2025 sees the introduction of a dedicated Adult Community Services project. Focusing on activity and workforce this project enables members to compare a selection of their key community services.

The services within the scope of this project are:

Community project for any providers of district nursing services

National data sources output

The provision of outpatient services varies greatly between providers with regard to clinic size, clinic scope, workforce composition and provision processes. The project aims to benchmark outpatient access, capacity, activity and workforce with similar size and types of outpatient services across the United Kingdom.

This project provides outpatients insights at the organisation level and specialty level, looking further into clinic delivery, follow-up activity and the use of PIFU.

As well as digital, medicines information, antimicrobials, research & clinical trials, medicines safety and virtual wards.

Alongside the service numerical data collected in the Ward Overview section, the Virtual Ward project also uses surveys to offer a comprehensive 360 picture of the services:

Examples metrics include:

Intermediate Care Project

• Cardiac

• Dietetics

• Musculoskeletal (MSK)

• Service users on caseload

• Waiting time to 1st contact

• Waiting time to 2nd contact

Data domains:

• Capacity & Access

• Finance

• Quality & Outcomes

• Population Health

• Workforce

• Activity

Key themes:

• Children’s Health

• Urgent Care

• Cancer

• Respiratory Conditions

• Frailty

• Integrated Primary Care

• CORE20PLUS5

Adult and Older People’s Mental Health Project

Mental Health sector project for any providers of adult services

Example metrics include:

The services within the scope of this project are:

• Health Visiting

• Occupational Therapy

• Physiotherapy

• Caseload size

• Total contacts

• Mandated reviews

Example metrics include:

• Referrals received

• Referral acceptance rate

• Waiting times

• 0-19

• Children’s Community Nursing

• Dietetics

• Referrals received

• Referrals received over time

• Waiting times

Emergency Care Project

• Referrals received

• Waiting times

• Caseload volumes

District Nursing Project

• Referrals received

• Referral acceptance rate

• Source of referral

• Frailty Screening

• CGA

• Opening Hours

• Indexing Comparisons

Virtual Wards Project

National Cost Collection Report

• Admission rate

• Bed occupancy

• Length of stay

Pharmacy and Medicines Optimisation Project

Children’s Community Services Project

The NHS Adult and Older People’s Mental Health Benchmarking Project tracks over 11,000 metrics, covering areas like inpatient care, community services, crisis support, and clinical outcomes. It helps mental health providers assess their performance in productivity, efficiency, quality, finances, and workforce.

• Workforce size

• Skill mix

• Vacancy rate

As well as patient demographics, activity, service model, finance, patient safety, and outcomes metrics.

Community project for any providers of children’s community services

We have benchmarked children's community services for many years, evolving through various projects. This year, we unify all children’s community services benchmarked in 2024 into the Children’s Community Services project. Giving participants insight into their community provision for children.

As well as service model, types of contacts, workforce qualifications and outcomes.

The project includes activity and workforce data for community and inpatient CYPMHS services. Community services covered include general, MHST, eating disorders, crisis, forensic, specialist teams, ASD, ADHD, and neurodiversity. Inpatient services include general admission (children and adolescents), eating disorders, PICU, low secure, medium secure, and others.

Example metrics include:

Acute and community project for any providers of emergency care services

Example metrics include:

• Attendances

• Length of stay

• Admittance rate

Example metrics include:

• Awareness and training

• Length of stay

• Readmissions

• Admission rate

• Bed occupancy

• Length of stay

Example metrics include:

As well as activity, service model, finance, digital, and outcomes metrics.

As well as activity, service model, finance and quality metrics.

Community project for any providers of community services

Example metrics include:

• Referrals received

• Step up vs step down

• Source of referral

As well as activity, service model, finance, digital, and outcomes metrics.

Frailty in a Bed-Based Setting

Acute and community sector project for providers of bed-based frailty services

Learning Disability Specialist Services (LDSS) Project

Mental Health sector project for any providers of learning disability specialist services

• School Nursing

• Speech and Language Therapy

• Workforce size

• Skill mix

• Vacancy rate

Children and Young People’s Mental Health Project

Mental Health sector project for any providers of children’s services

As well as activity, service model, finance, digital, and outcomes metrics.

District Nursing has been benchmarked by the Network for over 10 years, most recently as a standalone project, providing a focused deep dive into district nursing services, the challenges facing these services and where service model varies.

Report produced using national data for English Acute Trusts.

Acute sector project for any providers with an outpatient department

The Emergency Care Project has run annually since 2012, benchmarking various clinical areas, including (but not limited to) Type 1 and 2 emergency departments, Type 3 centres, Acute Medical Units (AMUs), and Same Day Emergency Care (SDEC) services. Aligned with the national initiative to shift healthcare into the community and alleviate pressure on Type 1 and 2 units, the project will enhance its Type 3 outputs in 2025.

• Referrals received

• PIFU

• Advice & guidance activity

Example metrics from the Ward Overview collection include:

• Bed numbers

• Operating hours

• Links to other services

The NHSBN National Cost Collection Analysis is a member level report that examines the NHS National Cost Collections data. The aim of the NHSBN analysis is to make the dataset more accessible and enable the reader to quickly understand what the data says about their organisation’s overall financial management.

The Intermediate Care project builds on the work of the National Audit of Intermediate Care. The clinical case review enables services to benchmark patient outcomes using the Sunderland Score and the Modified Barthel Index. By combining this data with service overview information, members can identify opportunities for service improvement.

Outpatients Project

Building on the success of Managing Frailty in an Acute Setting, which the network has run for 10 years, the Managing Frailty in a Bed-Based Setting project will enable comparisons of patient outcomes and service models across all bed-based settings.

The clinical case review provides a more detailed analysis of a patient cohort, allowing for a deeper evaluation and improvement of patient outcomes.

Across a range of areas of hospital provision, the National Cost Collection reports summarises:

This project aims to gather and benchmark comparable data across the whole service area; patient profile, finance, safety & feedback, to give a comprehensive view of the national position, enabling comparison to your organisational position.
The project collects data on service baseline, adult inpatient, adult community, children’s inpatient and children’s community services.