NHS Safety Thermometer: Survey-Level Patient Harm and Care Data

UK National Health Service data measuring, monitoring, and analyzing patient harms and 'harm-free' care. The survey-level export contains a copy of all data in the national tool, managed by NHS South, Central and West Commissioning Support Unit on behalf of NHS Improvement. Files are for rolling twelve-month periods and require Microsoft Excel 2007 or later.

Use Cases

• Monitor trends in patient harm rates based on the national measurement tool described.
• Analyze the prevalence of 'harm-free' care episodes across NHS providers.
• Support local quality improvement initiatives using the standardized audit data.
• Benchmark safety performance between different healthcare organizations.

Strengths

• Data is collected and published by NHS Digital, a national authoritative source.
• Files cover rolling twelve-month periods, suggesting regular updates.
• License is OGL-UK-3.0, permitting open use.

Limitations

• Row count and dataset scale are unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Data may reflect geographic or institutional bias inherent to the UK NHS system.

Provenance

Source

NHS Digital

Collection Method

Collected via the NHS Safety Thermometer, a local improvement tool for measuring patient harms.

Time Range

Rolling twelve-month periods; collection management changed from April 2017.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-07-08 13:32:51.115369; freshness should be verified.

Geography

United Kingdom (National Health Service)