NHS Choices is taking an active role in the Making Public Data Public programme. We are committed to ensuring relevant datasets are made available for further use and analysis once they have been published on the site.
An initial suite of datasets is scheduled to be made available on this site and through data.gov.uk during 2010. These will be updated regularly with the frequency based on the nature of the data. The files are in Microsoft Excel format.
Patient feedback
One of the key features on NHS Choices is the patient feedback facility, which allows the public to post feedback about their experiences with individual service providers. Organisations then have the opportunity to post a response to the comments.
- Overall ratings for hospital services and facilities (csv, 53 Kb) (an average rating out of five)
- Individuals' comments regarding hospitals plus responses from the service provider, (csv, 18.2 Mb)
- Individuals' comments regarding dentists plus responses from the practice, (csv, 7.47 Mb)
- Individuals' comments regarding pharmacies plus responses from the practice, (csv, 319 Kb)
- Individuals' comments regarding opticians plus responses from the practice, (csv, 104 Kb)
- Individuals' comments regarding GPs plus responses from the practice (csv, 10.01 Mb)
Provider quality indicators
NHS Choices allows users to compare information about up to five hospitals. Information includes indicators of the quality and safety of a hospital, as well as information about facilities provided, such as the cost and availability of car parking.
Procedure-specific information is available for a number of the more common procedures carried out in England, such as hip and knee replacement or procedures for varicose veins.
The hospital indicators zip file (available to download below) includes data published by NHS Choices. If you wish to use this data, be aware that the file provides access to a snapshot of the data, correct on the day of publication. Indicators may be updated on a daily, weekly, monthly or annual basis.
If you wish to publish an accurate, current picture of the performance for an individual organisation or group of organisations, please contact the data owner or check on the NHS Choices website prior to use.
NHS Choices has worked closely with indicator suppliers and with users of the website to ensure that items are presented responsibly and do not mislead. Any future users of this data are encouraged to ensure that their approach reflects this. For example, we would not encourage indicators that are banded to show ‘better’ or ‘worse’ performance to be presented based on the numerical value of the indicator alone, but to incorporate the banded qualitative label.
The zip file contains links to information about individual indicators, including information about time periods covered, data suppliers and owners and, where applicable, full methodologies. Some of these links are top pages outside of the NHS Choices website.
Data supplied to NHS Choices remains the property of the original data owner and future users of this data should ensure their use does not breach any data ownership or protection laws.
Please email nhschoicesteam@nhschoices.nhs.uk if you have any questions about this data file.
Hospitals
This is a list of the hospital assets as currently managed by the providers on NHS Choices. The spreadsheet contains the basic organisation details and whether that record is the primary organisation record or whether the record represents services run at the primary organisation.
GPs
This is a list of the GP assets as currently managed by the providers on NHS Choices. The spreadsheet contains the basic organisation details plus the administrative ODS (Organisation Data Service) code where available.
Syndication
An alternative method of downloading NHS Choices data is through our syndication services. You can find details of how organisations and individuals gain access to these feeds by selecting the link NHS Choices web services.
