What are the Outcome Standards?
The GP Outcome Standards represent the minimum patients can expect to receive from general practice and form part of a suite of products designed to support and improve primary care in London, covering areas such as screening, diagnosis and patient experience.
The standards have been carefully selected and developed with professional advice from Londonwide Local Medical Committees and in collaboration with a wide range of groups, including doctors, nurses, general practice staff, NHS managers and the public.
They represent an important starting point, giving easy access to the public and a major step forward for general practice in London. We will be evaluating the process and are already exploring improvements - so keep visiting this site to see how they develop.
Why 22 standards?
You may notice that 22 standards are talked about and yet when you look at the drop down list on your GP's page there are 23. This is because:
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One year cancer survival rates are divided into two standards – one for breast cancer and one for lung cancer;
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Flu jabs are also divided into two standards – one for people aged 65 and over and the other for people under 65 years who are at risk of getting flu;
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The data collection for Standard 19 has taken longer than anticipated. This standard will be about the number for people who change their GP but do not change their home address. The data for this standard is currently being prepared for publication in the summer of 2012;
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In addition, standard 9 on chronic obstructive pulmonary disease only shows data for the year 2006/07. This is because an error was spotted in the 2007/08 and 2008/09 datasets. It is being looked into by NHS Comparators and will be published on this site as soon as it is corrected, together with the most recent year.
Why is some data older than others?
The pie charts and graphs that you see will be refreshed every quarter from now on to reflect the most recent data available. There is always a time lag between the data being collected and actually being published. Also some datasets are only published anually.
How do the publication dates work?
The NHS year operates from April to March and is divided into quarters. Quarter 1 covers April to June, quarter 2 July to September and so on. If you see, for example data displayed as Q2, 09/10, that means the data is from the period July - September, in the NHS year of April 2009 to March 2010.
How will the standards be developed?
Publishing this data in such an open way is a big step forward for general practice in London. Work is already underway to improve the existing standards and to ensure that the most recent data is uploaded on a regular basis, so keep coming back to the site.
New standards are comming in the summer
There are six new standards which will be published in the summer, they are:
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Access to General Practice
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Alcohol
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Early Detection of Cancer (focusing on breast, lung and colorectal)
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Severe Mental Illness
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Depression
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End of Life Care