The first results from the NHS’s landmark collection of patient reported outcome measures are expected to be published next month despite earlier concerns about whether enough patients had responded.

The centre said it was on course to publish data from the work despite earlier concerns about whether enough patients had responded.

It is the patients themselves who are best placed to judge how they feel

It is the first collection in the world of patient reported outcome measures - PROMs - across an entire health system.

The initial results, which will be published next month by the NHS Information Centre, will compare how patients at different trusts rate their health before undergoing two procedures - groin hernia and varicose vein.

Later, the figures will be matched with how patients rate their health several months after treatment, showing how much they have improved at different trusts.

There has been some concern about the number of patients sending back completed forms after their operation.

But the Information Centre said that, while there was variation in the return rate between trusts, it was confident there would be enough information to publish next month.

The confirmation comes as the King’s Fund and Office of Health Economics publish a joint report on the potential of the patient reported measures to transform management, funding and clinical quality.

Getting The Most Out of PROMs, by OHE research director Nancy Devlin and King’s Fund chief economist John Appleby, says: “PROMs are likely to become a key part of how all healthcare is funded, provided and managed.

“The goal of most healthcare is to improve patients’ health and, arguably, it is the patients themselves who are best placed to judge how they feel.

“The introduction of PROMs reflects a growing recognition throughout the world that the patient’s perspective is highly relevant to efforts to improve the quality and effectiveness of healthcare.

“PROMs are likely to become a key part of how all healthcare is funded, provided and managed.”

Bupa group medical director Andrew Vallance-Owen, who chairs the Department of Health PROMs stakeholder group, introduced PROMs for quality improvement in the hospitals the group used to run.

He said: “The NHS programme is an innovative programme. PROMs have generally only been used in research in the past, which is very different to measuring routinely.”

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