National Hip Fracture Database: Patient Care and Outcomes

More than 250,000 cases make the National Hip Fracture Database the largest audit of its kind globally. It documents case-mix, care processes, and outcomes like mortality and return to home for hip fracture patients, primarily in England. The database was launched in 2007 to drive improvements in care and supports national initiatives like the Best Practice Tariff.

Use Cases

• Benchmarking hospital performance against national care standards based on documented process metrics.
• Analyzing mortality and discharge outcomes linked to patient case-mix and treatment timelines.
• Studying the epidemiology of hip fractures in an aging population across different regions.
• Evaluating the impact of policy interventions, such as the Best Practice Tariff, on clinical care pathways.

Strengths

• Contains over 250,000 patient cases, making it the world's largest hip fracture audit.
• Has demonstrated broad improvements in patient care at local and national levels, supporting successful policy.
• Managed by authoritative bodies including the Royal College of Physicians and funded as a national clinical audit.

Limitations

• Specific column names and data structure are not provided in the available metadata.
• The dataset's row count and file size are listed as unknown.
• While the audit covers multiple UK nations, the data files reportedly only refer to England, limiting geographic scope.

Provenance

Source

National Hip Fracture Database (NHFD), part of the Falls and Fragility Fracture Audit Programme.

Collection Method

National clinical audit documenting patient case-mix, care, and outcomes.

Time Range

Annual Report for 2010-11, with data collection ongoing since 2007.

Freshness

Last updated metadata indicates 2026-06-17, but this likely refers to platform metadata, not the underlying 2010-11 report data.

Geography

Audit covers England, Wales, Northern Ireland, the Isle of Man, and the Channel Islands, but data files are for England only.