Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government, in regard to the Paterson Inquiry report, published on 4 February 2020, whether they have established a single publicly accessible repository for consultant data across England that includes information on consultant practising privileges and performance data; if not, what steps they are taking to establish that repository; and when they expect it to be operational.

The National Consultant Information Programme (NCIP) is a platform that is available to 10,000 National Health Service clinicians in England, providing a single source of robust, nationally benchmarked data at an individual consultant level. Updated quarterly, it contains over 6,000 clinical metrics, including volumes, readmissions, revisions, length of stay, mortality, and is already being used for clinical improvement, appraisal, and revalidation of consultant surgeons in the NHS.

The platform seeks to support clinical oversight by giving medical directors, responsible officers, and specialty clinical leads access to the data for the consultants they are responsible for, supporting their statutory responsibilities for ensuring clinical quality and safety.

Once it is fully developed and embedded in clinical practice with the full support of clinical bodies, NCIP will consult with interested parties, including patient representatives, as to what is appropriate and informative for publication.