Friends and Family Test

Data Provision Notice to require the submission from a range of healthcare providers of data collated as part of this national feedback programme.

Overview

The Friends and Family Test (FFT) programme, gives patients and staff the opportunity to submit feedback to local providers of NHS funded services, using a simple question which asks how likely they are to recommend the service to their friends and family. Data is collated and used locally by providers but an aggregate extract of counts is also submitted centrally to NHS England

The FFT is used in a number of settings:

acute (emergency, inpatient, maternity, outpatient services)
ambulance
community
mental health

While predominantly aimed at patients and their friends and families, there is one element of the FFT collection which allows staff to also provide feedback.

Legal basis of the collection

ARTICLE

The migration and continued operation of the Unify2 collections through Strategic Data Collections Service Direction 2017

A Direction given by the Secretary of State for Health requiring NHS Digital to establish the migration of the Unify2 collections listed in Annex A onto NHS Digital's Strategic Data Collections Service (SDCS) and continue the operation of these collections through this service.

Scope

This Notice is served on:

acute trusts
ambulance trusts
care trusts
community trusts
mental health trusts
voluntary and independent sector providers

Period

The collection of FFT data started in April 2013 with the change of platform to NHS England taking place in November 2017. The collection is ongoing, with aggregate counts being collected:

on a monthly basis for:

Accident and Emergency
Ambulance
Community Health
In-patients
Mental Health
Outpatients

and on a quarterly basis for:

National Quarterly Pulse Survey (Staff)

Read the Data Provision Notice

Friends and Family Test Combined Data Provision Notice (Version 3.0)

pdf 173 KB

Updates

24 April 2025

FFT Long Covid Assessment Clinics quarterly aggregate collection was retired.

13 August 2024

General review and update to the information asset owner.

17 September 2021

This combination Notice replaces the individual Notices for each component of the FFT which were previously published in 2017 (at the point of transfer of the FFT collection platform to NHS England). In addition, this DPN notes the addition of a new component, for Long COVID clinic settings.

Last edited: 24 April 2025 3:52 pm