Calls to improve data on patient outcomes

Lisa Anson, from AstraZeneca supports the report’s conclusions and argues that accurately tracking factors like quality of care and survival rates is crucial for enabling commissioning bodies to make informed decisions on spending on drugs and treatments.

In the UK we are quite rightly proud of our National Health Service (NHS). As an organisation that works closely with all parts of the NHS, my colleagues and I, at AstraZeneca, see the many challenges that it faces. In particular we see the multiple complex metrics and incentives at every layer and hear the frustration that can get in the way of prioritising the patient. I believe that a transparent, reliable and robust system to report and share patient outcomes is needed, and that this could be instrumental in driving the NHS towards a greater focus on patient outcomes. Accurately tracking factors like quality of care and survival rates is crucial for enabling commissioning bodies to make informed decisions on spending on drugs and treatments, and to allow patients and policy makers to hold services to account. Moreover, by providing a more transparent picture of outcomes throughout the NHS, it will be easier to identify where improvement is required.

This is the background against which think tank, the Social Market Foundation (SMF), developed a research paper suggesting some practical ways in which information around outcomes could be collated, measured and disseminated more effectively. AstraZeneca is committed to making a meaningful difference to patient health. This is why we support this research paper as we believe it is crucial that the NHS and the relevant commissioning bodies have a clear picture of patient outcomes and are able to see where resources should be most effectively allocated.