CDS data quality reporting reference manual

Users can use the Commissioning Data Sets (CDS) Data Quality Dashboards (DQDs) to

• monitor the completeness and validity of key data items in the various commissioning data sets (CDS) submitted to SUS
• assess CDS data in SUS to ensure completeness and compliance with data standards
• compare sender organisation against higher level region and national level data

We can give access to non NHS organisation where there is a valid business need and an NHS sponsor is provided. 

The following dashboards are available  

The main data quality dashboard supports the improvement and completeness of data flows by reporting on the validity of SUS data items. This dashboard provides versions of the report at provider level and commissioner level.

It covers

• Admitted Patient Care (APC, CDS type 130)
• Outpatients (OP, CDS type 020)
• Emergency Care Data Set (ECDS, CDS type 010)
• Maternity (Births and Deliveries, CDS types 120, 140, 150 & 160)

The coverage data quality dashboard report covers

• comparison of CDS submissions against monthly aggregate returns
• month on month submission consistency
• regional and national coverage breakdowns

The Critical Care CDS data quality dashboard reports on the validity of key data items within submitted critical care activity data, which flows as part of the Admitted Patient Care (APC) CDS.  It covers

• adult critical care data
• paediatric critical care data
• neonatal critical care data

CDS data quality reports focus on specific areas or data items within the submitted CDS data. These reports are currently available for the following topics:

• Casemix and Clinical Coding Assurance Report
• Site Code of Treatment CDS data item

The reports are NOT intended to be used as a performance measurement tool.  They are designed to support adherence to best practice and data standards.  All reports are produced monthly, following the reconciliation inclusion date.

Information is generally presented at

• provider level - for every provider of NHS funded services in England, submitting CDS into SUS
• region level  - summaries for each higher-level region based on their relationship to provider organisations in the Organisation Data Service (ODS) reference data
• national level -  a national (England) summary for each indicator

The reports are primarily aimed at provider organisations delivering NHS-funded services (NHS trusts and the independent sector delivering NHS activity) to help them monitor and drive improvements in the quality and completeness of their CDS data submissions to SUS.  They may also be of interest to NHS organisations with a remit to commission or monitor healthcare.

Based upon the Payment by Results (PbR) extracts available from SUS, which are derived using the submitted CDS data.  It compares APC, OP and ECDS data submitted at the reconciliation inclusion (Flex) and post-reconciliation inclusion (Freeze) dates for a given month covering the following areas

• number of records submitted, for both spells and episodes, at flex and freeze dates
• percentage of records with a UZ01Z HRG code, at flex and freeze dates

The report also presents information about the following month's data submitted by its reconciliation inclusion (Flex) date.  The information covers the above areas alongside a comparison between the flex and freeze reporting months, highlighting the volume changes between the two.

For APC, the report also shows

• presence of and % of providers with new procedure codes introduced in OPCS 4.9
• presence of and % of providers with new diagnosis codes introduced in ICD-10 5th edition

This report contains information relating to key data quality characteristics for the Site Code of Treatment data item based on CDS data submissions to SUS. It covers the APC, OP and ECDS data sets.

• Completeness - records submitted with or without a site code
• Validity - records with a site code are validated against the ODS reference data
• Default - volume of valid records submitted as a default code
• Integrity - records with a valid site code which do/don’t have a relationship to the provider code. Volume of unique site codes submitted compared to available volume of site codes for the organisation, taken from ODS reference data
• Site code lookup - breakdown of submitted site codes, including specific reason for site codes being flagged as invalid