About Us

An independent organisation led by a consortium of the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, the Royal College of Nursing and National Voices, our primary aim is to improve health outcomes by enabling those who commission, deliver and receive healthcare to measure and improve the services provided. We achieve this by supporting robust quality improvement through national programmes of clinical audit, confidential enquiries and registries.

Specifically, we commission, manage and develop the National Clinical Audit and Patient Outcomes Programme (NCAPOP) on behalf of NHS England, the Welsh Government and, in some cases, other devolved administrations and crown dependencies. This programme is comprised of circa 40 projects that collect and analyse data supplied by local clinical teams, in order to provide a national benchmarked picture of care standards for a wide range of conditions. We also host the National Joint Registry (NJR), who collect, analyse and report on data for hip, knee, ankle, elbow and shoulder joint replacement procedures. Described as a global exemplar of an implantable medical device registry, the NJR, which covers England, Wales, Northern Ireland, the Isle of Man and Guernsey continues to be the largest orthopaedic registry in the world, with an international reputation and now with around 3.7 million procedure records submitted.