13 October 2020 David Cousins by Email Request-691672-5Ea75ac7

Skipton House 80 London Road 13 October 2020 London SE1 6LH

T: 020 3747 0000 E: [email protected] W: improvement.nhs.uk David Cousins By email [email protected]

Dear Dr Cousins

Request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (the “FOI Act”)

We refer to your email of 16 September 2020 in which you requested information under the FOI Act from NHS Improvement. Since 1 April 2016, Monitor and the NHS Trust Development Authority have been operating as an integrated organisation known as NHS Improvement. For the purposes of this decision, NHS Improvement means Monitor and the TDA.

Your request

The full terms of your request have been annexed.

Decision

NHS Improvement holds the information you have requested and has decided to release all of the information it holds. In response:

1) How have patients and the public been involved in developing PSIMS?

User research is a fundamental requirement of the ‘agile’ development process, as mandated by the Government Digital Services (GDS) team, who regularly assess the delivery of the project. We have undertaken user research with over 120 patients, members of the public and NHS England & NHS Improvement PPV (Patient and Public Voice) representatives through a variety of methods including: • An initial patient workshop to identify priorities for patient reporting and involvement in learning and feedback. • A survey supporting design decisions in PSIMS, circulated on social media and through NHS England and NHS Improvement’s public engagement channels • Further face to face workshops • Remote user testing • Remotely reviewing and feeding back on project documentation

NHS Improvement is the operational name for the organisation that brings together Monitor, NHS Trust Development Authority, Patient Safety, the National Reporting and Learning System, the Advancing Change team and the Intensive Support Teams.

Registered individuals also receive updates via the PSIMS mailing list for project updates, and information is shared periodically via social media (though both of these have been minimised during the Covid response period to avoid distraction from important health messaging).

2) Why is information about data fields/ questions concerning patient safety incidents that will be collected via PSIMS, not available in the public domain? Please provide this information as a FOI response.

PSIMS has been redesigning the data set that is collected in relation to patient safety events alongside the technical build of the new service. The project is aiming to address a number of issues with the existing taxonomy to improve our ability to learn from data collected.

The new taxonomy for PSIMS is being developed iteratively as part of the Beta phase of the work and was recently released for testing and compatibility implementation to Local Risk Management System vendors. Digital copies of the taxonomy have been shared with other individuals and organisations upon request since. The full taxonomy has not been posted online due several factors, including COVID restrictions on non-urgent communications.

We are happy to share documentation relating to the new taxonomy to anyone who requests it.

Copies of the current draft version of the taxonomy can be requested by email via [email protected]

3) Why is information concerning how the PSIMS data will be analysed to generate learning from incident reports to minimise harm to patients, not available in the public domain? Please provide this information as a FOI response.

Our approach to supporting patient safety improvement, including the use of incident data from a range of sources, are already described in our National Patient Safety Strategy (see here) and a range of other materials on our websites including Review and Response reports and National Patient Safety Alerts.

PSIMS will help us and our partners to undertake many aspects of this work in a way that remains consistent with our current published approach, but with ongoing and iterative enhancements as appropriate.

Work is currently underway to build the first set of data processing and querying tools for PSIMS. The precise nature of these tools and the analysis they will support is being designed as part of this process, based on ongoing work with this user group, and the developing understanding of the new taxonomy as more data is submitted in the new format.

4) Why is information concerning future output formats of PSIMS data, not available in the public domain? Please provide this information as a FOI response.

See the response to question 3 above. Any changes to the format of existing outputs will be dictated by any additional capability created via PSIMS and by user needs. This work is not yet complete.

Review rights

If you consider that your request for information has not been properly handled or if you are otherwise dissatisfied with the outcome of your request, you may seek an internal review within NHS Improvement of the issue or the decision. A senior member of NHS Improvement’s staff, who has not previously been involved with your request, will undertake that review.

If you are dissatisfied with the outcome of any internal review, you may complain to the Information Commissioner for a decision on whether your request for information has been dealt with in accordance with the FOI Act.

A request for an internal review should be submitted in writing to FOI Request Reviews, NHS Improvement, Skipton House, 80 London Road, London SE1 6LH or by email to [email protected].

Publication

We reserve the right to publish this letter on our website. This is because information disclosed in accordance with the FOI Act is disclosed to the public at large. We will, of course, remove your personal information (e.g. your name and contact details) from any version of the letter published on our website to protect your personal information from general disclosure.

Yours sincerely,

NHS Improvement

Annex – FOI request

The Patient Safety Team at NHS Improvement have indicated that from Summer 2020 any NHS organisation that wishes to record into PSIMS rather than the National Reporting and Learning System will be encouraged to do so. A national transition from recording incidents on NRLS to PSIMS will occur from late 2020.

There is a real danger that PSIMS will be launched and implemented in the NHS without sufficient details of the system being placed in the public domain for comment and to reassure patients and the public that it will collect and identify important risks to patient safety.

FOI requests:

1) How have patients and the public been involved in developing PSIMS? 2) Why is information about data fields/ questions concerning patient safety incidents that will be collected via PSIMS, not available in the public domain? Please provide this information as a FOI response. 3) Why is information concerning how the PSIMS data will be analysed to generate learning from incident reports to minimise harm to patients, not available in the public domain? Please provide this information as a FOI response. 4) Why is information concerning future output formats of PSIMS data, not available in the public domain? Please provide this information as a FOI response.