Selected Quotes

“If wisely used, these improved statistics [on outcomes] would tell us more about the relative value of particular operations and modes of treatment than we have any means of ascertaining at present.”

• Nightingale F. Notes on Hospitals. 3rd Edition, 1863

“Measuring, reporting and comparing outcomes are perhaps the most important steps towards rapidly improving outcomes and making good choices about reducing costs.”

• Porter M. What is Value in Health Care? New England Journal of Medicine, December 2010

“Information generated by patients themselves will be critical to this process  ....  much wider use of Patient-Reported Outcome Measures (PROMS), patient experience data, and real-time feedback.”

• Equity and Excellence: Liberating the NHS, July 2010 para2.7

When you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind; it may be the beginning of knowledge, but you have scarcely in your thoughts advanced to the state of science.

• William Thompson, Lord Kelvin, Lecture to the Institution of Civil Engineers, 3 May 1883

Clinicians said they wanted to have better access to accurate data about health outcomes so that they could benchmark outcomes and improve services. … Many pointed out that this data also needs to be transparent and widely available, especially to enable patients to make informed choices about their care.

• McLean K (chair). Clinical advice and leadership. A report for the NHS Future Forum. London: Department of Health June 2011