Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what proportion of NHS Trusts providing eyecare services routinely submit data to the National Ophthalmology Database; and if he will amend the NHS Mandate to require that all relevant Trusts submit to that database.
Of the 118 eligible National Health Service trusts in England and Wales, 73 NHS trusts in England and four Welsh Local Health Boards submitted data to the National Ophthalmology Audit Database (NOD) between 1 September 2018 and 31 August 2019, the time period for which data is currently available. This is in addition to 23 independent treatment centre sites and one centre in Guernsey. All eligible trusts are encouraged to submit data to the NOD but there are no plans to make this mandatory.
The NOD is managed by the Royal College of Ophthalmologists. NHS England and NHS Improvement work closely with the Royal College of Ophthalmologists and NHS Digital to support the collection and utilisation of healthcare data to improve patient safety and quality outcomes.