Siobhan Tuohy-Smith to Chris Roebuck: Compliance review of NHS England Referral to Treatment (RTT) statistics: implementation of recommendations 

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Sent from: Office for Statistics Regulation

Sent to: NHS England

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Dear Chris,

Compliance review of NHS England Referral to Treatment (RTT) statistics: implementation of recommendations

Thank you for your letter of 21 October setting out NHS England’s response to the recommendations made in our compliance review of NHS England’s Referral to Treatment (RTT) statistics.

NHS England has made good progress in addressing the recommendations from the review. The accompanying public update, clearly communicates this progress and demonstrates a commitment to transparency about improvements to the RTT statistics.

Having reviewed the evidence, NHS England has made positive progress in the publication of an improvement workplan, enhanced guidance and supporting information for users, greater transparency around patient removals, and improved engagement with users, which has strengthened the transparency and value of RTT statistics. We also welcome your commitment to continue working with colleagues across the UK to support users’ understanding of the comparability of waiting times statistics and the limitations of comparisons between different measures.

We encourage NHS England to continue its work to better understand and communicate the reasons why RTT pathways are closed. Information on pathway closures plays an important role in helping users interpret changes in waiting list statistics and understand movements on the RTT pathway. Publishing further analysis in this area, together with any resulting actions, would enhance transparency and support public confidence in the statistics.

We also note that some of the commitments described in your letter are not yet fully reflected in the response to OSR compliance review recommendations. To ensure users have a clear and consistent understanding of the progress made, the work that remains underway, and future plans, we encourage NHS England to update the public-facing information so that it fully reflects the latest position.

Thank you again for your constructive engagement throughout this work and for the progress made in response to the review’s recommendations. We look forward to continuing to work with NHS England and seeing the continued benefits of these improvements for users of RTT statistics.

Yours sincerely,

Siobhan Tuohy-Smith

Joint Head of Regulatory Compliance for OSR

Office for Statistics Regulation