NACEL Celebrated in National Awards!

The National Audit for Care at the End of Life (NACEL) is in the spotlight this week, as part of a national campaign to underline the importance of clinical audit in improving patient care. The audit has been announced as a joint winner in the Communicating for Impact category of the Clinical Audit Heroes awards, an integral part of Clinical Audit Awareness Week. 

We are delighted to be awarded this Clinical Audit Heroes commendation, which recognises the range of innovative communication methods used to demonstrate the audit’s impact. By taking an evidence-informed approach to improvement, clinical audits help to target change where it will have the greatest impact. We recognise the hard work of staff in the Trusts and Health Boards who contribute to NACEL to make it such a valuable source of data to inform improvement work. To read more about the impact that NACEL has at a local level, take a look at our Impact Compendium

Clinical Audit Awareness Week is hosted by the Healthcare Quality Improvement Partnership (HQIP) in collaboration with the quality improvement network N-QI-CAN, and has run this year from 2nd-6th June. It is designed to celebrate the role of clinical audit and quality improvement in improving healthcare services. 

More specifically, clinical audits review and measure healthcare, often in relation to local and national standards and targets. They are an effective way to determine if services are performing as they should and, if not, identify where changes are needed. They also help healthcare providers and patients alike to understand how their service is performing, and where improvements would have the greatest impact. As such, the work of clinical audit teams is essential, both as drivers of improvement in their own organisations and in supporting scrutiny of our health system at a national level.  

“Without clinical audit, we would lack the necessary insights to understand what is working well and, crucially, what is not. By measuring our healthcare services and tracking the differences that improvement activities make, clinical audits support us to maximise resources, and so contribute to saving and improving patients’ lives.”

— Chris Gush, CEO of HQIP

For more information on the national clinical audits that are commissioned by HQIP on behalf of the NHS, go to www.hqip.org.uk/national-programmes.To see the findings from this work, view the reports published on a wide range of clinical disciplines, ranging from asthma and diabetes to cancer and cardiovascular disease.  

Find out more about Clinical Audit Awareness Week and the Clinical Audit Heroes awards on the HQIP website. You can also join in the celebrations on social media using #CAAW25. 

Sarah Atkinson to step back from Director role at NHS Benchmarking Network

We would like to announce that Sarah Atkinson will be stepping back from her role as Director of the NHS Benchmarking Network. Sarah will continue to support the team in an ambassador role, thus gaining some precious time to spend with her family.

Since joining NHSBN in 2020, Sarah has played a pivotal role in shaping and advancing our benchmarking programmes, driving improvements across health and care services, and strengthening collaborations. Sarah’s leadership and vision have had a lasting impact on the organisation and our members, participants, and stakeholders.​ A big part of this has been developing a talented team, who led by the Senior Leadership Team, remains committed to delivering high-quality programmes of work and maximising the impact the Network has.

We extend our sincere gratitude to Sarah for her dedication and continued contribution. 

Statement from the NHS Benchmarking Network

Following the recent announcement from NHS England, we would like to reassure our members that the NHS Benchmarking Network member programme operates independently from NHS England. While we work closely with NHS England and are commissioned to deliver a number of projects on their behalf, the NHS Benchmarking Network Member Programme is not affected by the recent changes. We have been supporting NHS organisations for almost 30 years and have remained a consistent and reliable partner through numerous NHS restructures and will continue to provide the same level of service moving forward.

We are fully committed to continuing our work with members during this period of change, ensuring you gain the maximum value from your membership.

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us at enquiry@nhsbenchmarking.nhs.uk

CVDPREVENT in Dublin: The team present at the National Office of Clinical Audit (NOCA) conference

NHSBN’s audit team is part of a clinical audit community, with teams across the world collecting and reporting clinical data with the aim of improving services and care for patients. Together, we can share our successes, discuss our challenges and collaborate, in order to perfect what we do and innovate new processes. That’s exactly what we were able to do when NOCA invited the CVDPREVENT team to join them and present at their annual conference.

About NOCA and their annual conference

NOCA manages national clinical audits in Ireland that aim to improve patient care and outcomes. NOCA’s findings enable the healthcare system to act to improve care where standards are not followed. Each audit focuses on a unique area of healthcare such as hip fracture, major trauma, hospital mortality, ICU care and joint replacements.

The team at NOCA run an annual conference with the theme for 2025 stated as ‘Data-Driven Healthcare: Planning, Delivering, Improving’. This in-person event is an excellent opportunity to network with individuals and teams that work with clinical data and understand the impact it can have.

Presenting the CVDPREVENT audit: a topic that’s close to our hearts

The CVDPREVENT team were delighted to be invited to present at the conference in Dublin in February 2025. Just a short journey over from Manchester, the team hopped on a flight to Dublin to visit the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland where the conference was held.

Opportunities like this give us a moment to reflect on the process of setting up projects such as CVDPREVENT, England’s national clinical audit of cardiovascular disease prevention in primary care. There were definitely challenges along the way as we navigated the collection of data from millions of patients as well as the development and design of a reporting tool with a wide range of users. Being able to share what we did and how we overcame barriers is a great reminder of how far we have come and makes us revisit our aspirations!

As a team, it’s important for us to refocus on our overall goal to use data to support the prevention of CVD in England. We know how much this matters to patients and carers who have lived experiences of CVD, a condition that can often have a sudden and substantial impact on individuals and their friends and family. At the NOCA conference we were able to share our insights into CVD prevention and highlight where our data shows opportunities for improvement.

Learning from others

The NOCA conference was a fantastic opportunity for us to learn from others and talk to like-minded people who have experience with clinical audit and data. We would like to thank the NOCA team for inviting us to such an insightful event, inspiring us to continue to innovate and develop our clinical audits!

Launching 2025/26: Explore our vision, objectives and opportunities for members

As we kick off the 2025/26 year, we have refreshed our vision and objectives to align with the evolving needs of our members and the wider health and care landscape.

Our vision, values and objectives support our governance structure for the effective and efficient operation of the Network.

Click on the sections below to see our vision, values and objectives for 2025/26.

• Vision

  To enable members to improve patient outcomes, raise health standards and deliver sustainable quality health and care services through data excellence, benchmarking and the sharing of innovation.

• Values

  • Excellence – Always striving to be the best we can be, in everything we do

  • Respect – Value everyone, acknowledge members’ unique experiences, work together to deliver improvement

  • Integrity – Be transparent, be realistic, be honest

• Objectives

  1. Put our members, stakeholders and participants at the heart of who we are, building and maintaining the Network’s reputation for excellence.​

  2. Work together, enabling curiosity by ensuring strong connections with and between stakeholders, creating benchmarking communities through education and positive relationships.​

  3. Actively seek to build a sustainable Network through value for money, relevant and meaningful insight and support.​

  4. Provide additional opportunities for members and stakeholders to gain bespoke support and insight into relevant priority areas, building on the core benchmarking programmes.​

  5. Make data validity and reliability the core of our work programmes to support finding the answer to the ‘so what’ question.​

  6. Maximise project participation and engagement, ensuring that data collections are appropriate and proportionate.​

  7. Develop new solutions by investing in technology to the benefit of all stakeholders.

2025/26 member programme

The 2025/26 member programme is now live! Projects are open for registration via the members’ area, and for some, data collection will begin imminently. Be sure to check the programme timetable for key project dates.

If you missed our programme launch webinar in March, you can watch the recording anytime in the members’ area.

2024/25 year in numbers

This year we’ve welcomed new member organisations, seen thousands of users actively accessing our members' area, and delivered impactful projects and resources. From hosting well-attended events to launching new tools and sharing valuable insights, our members have demonstrated a commitment to collaboration and innovation. The impressive participation in knowledge and code sharing highlights the collective effort to drive progress. Take a look at our year in numbers…

Not a member? Join the NHS Benchmarking Network to gain access to our benchmarking projects, data insights, and networking opportunities. Our member programme helps organisations improve services, drive innovation and share best practice.

Get in touch today to find out how your organisation can benefit.

Access update to our show codes feature!

In response to member feedback, we have expanded access to our show codes feature. Previously restricted to certain users, this feature is now accessible to all users within a submitting member organisation*.

What is the show codes feature?
This feature is available to submitting member organisations* under our Terms of Membership. It allows users from these member organisations* to access the unique identifier codes of their peers*, fostering greater collaboration and insight in our benchmarking projects.

How to access the show codes feature
Accessing project outputs and submission codes is straightforward. Follow these steps:

1. Log in to the NHSBN members’ area using your login credentials.

2. Navigate to the project output page of a project that your organisation has participated in.

3. Open the full project toolkit and select the latest year.

4. Look for the “show codes” button at the top of the toolkit.

5. Click on the button to reveal the list of submitting members* who have submitted data for that project. Their unique identifier codes and project lead details will be displayed to support networking and collaboration.

We hope this update makes it easier for members to connect with peers and gain valuable insights from our benchmarking projects. If you have any questions, please get in touch.

*Please note that some submitting members may have opted out of data sharing, meaning their identifier codes will not be displayed and this feature will not be available to their users.

Exciting year ahead for members of the NHS Benchmarking Network!

Click on the image to view and download the NHSBN 2025/26 Member Work Programme.

The NHS Benchmarking Network are thrilled to announce details of the 2025/26 benchmarking programme available to member organisations.

Our revised vision is ‘to enable members to improve patient outcomes, raise health standards and deliver sustainable, quality health and care services through data excellence, benchmarking and the sharing of innovation.’ 

We aim to do that by continuing to do what we do best, providing a benchmarking service that complements and fills a gap in national data and insight, facilitating service improvement activity leading to improved patient outcomes. 

We are continuing our annual cycle of data collections, alongside utilising national data sources to provide benchmarked insight with less data burden. We will also be providing a focused view on productivity and health inequalities to support members to understand their position in these priority areas. 

In collaboration with our reference and steering groups we will be adapting our benchmarking collections in the following ways:

• Managing Frailty – we will expand the scope of the Managing Frailty project from solely an acute setting, to in a bed-based setting to capture activity in the community. 

• Adult/All-Age Community Services – we will benchmark the community therapy services benchmarked in the 2024 Adult Therapies project in a new Adult/All-Age Community Services project. We will also benchmark Community Cardiac and Community Respiratory services in this project, which haven’t been benchmarked since 2022.  

• Children’s Community Services – we will combine children’s community services benchmarked in 2024 to offer a Children’s Community Services project benchmarking; Health Visiting, School Nursing, Children’s Community Nursing and four children’s community therapy services; Dietetics, Physiotherapy, Occupational Therapy and Speech & Language Therapy.

• Pharmacy – scoping the inclusion of Mental Health and Community Pharmacy provision in the project. This is being feasibility tested with members to ensure effectiveness and minimising the impact on the established Acute Pharmacy participation.

• Other projects – based on feedback and member engagement the other annual projects scope and specifications will be reviewed and updated to maximise usefulness for members. E.g., plans to include additional questions around provision for neurodiversity teams in the Adult’s and Older People’s Mental Health and Children and Young People’s Mental Health Projects, continuing to develop the Type 3 data collection for the Emergency Care project and introducing a staff survey to the Intermediate Care project.

More detail on the timescales for our collections is available to view and download here. All projects will be opening for registration in March, enabling you to prepare early and maximise the value. 

However, there is so much more to membership than the data collection projects! Membership also gives you the opportunity to network with other like-minded individuals and organisations and we will be offering more ways to do this during 2025/26.

Click on the image to register your attendance for the webinar.

Join us for the member programme launch webinar
To kick off the new membership year, we invite you to join our launch webinar on Thursday, 20th March, 09:00 – 10:30am via MS Teams. This event will outline next year’s projects and help you prepare to maximise your membership in the year ahead. 
Please click here to register to attend the event.

2025/26 membership renewals 
Next week, we will email membership renewal letters to membership lead contacts. This letter will cover the steps for membership renewals to secure continued access for 2025/26. If you have any questions about the renewal process, please reach out.  

2024/25 member survey 
Thank you to our members for their continued support to the NHS Benchmarking Network. We’d love to hear your feedback on this year’s member programme. Your insights are invaluable in shaping our future initiatives. Members can access this year’s survey via a pop up upon logging in to the members’ area.  

A Day of Teamwork, Learning, and Festive Cheer

On 6th December, the NHS Benchmarking Network team came together for a whole business team day filled with learning, collaboration and festive fun. The day provided a valuable opportunity for colleagues to connect, share ideas, and explore ways to strengthen teamwork and business development.

Interactive Sessions to Inspire and Collaborate
The team rotated through six interactive sessions delivered by colleagues:

• The Business: A deep dive into how the business operates today and opportunities for future growth.

• Active Minds, Safe Spaces: Exploring how to build and sustain psychological safety within the workspace.

• Closing the Loop: Feedback and ideas for collaboration from the Dev Hub team.

• Shaping Business Development: Understanding the evolution of business development and how we can work together to shape its future.

• Unleash Your Inner Ape: Investigating the role of self-awareness in communication and teamwork.

• Unlocking Fabrica: The team day marked the first visit to our new office space, Fabrica. This session included a tour, a safety induction, and an overview of office house rules.

Ending the Year with Festive Fun
After a productive day, the team embraced the festive spirit by donning Christmas jumpers and heading to Roxy Ball Room for an evening of pool, ping pong and holiday cheer.

Looking Ahead to 2025
The day was a fantastic opportunity to strengthen connections, share ideas, and explore new ways of working together. It provided valuable insights and a shared sense of purpose as we prepare for the year ahead.

✨ Happy Holidays from the NHS Benchmarking Network! ✨

As 2024 comes to a close, we want to thank our members, participants and partners for their continued support and collaboration. We wish you all a joyful festive season and a healthy, happy New Year!