Using all the evidence: towards a truly intelligent National Health Service

In order to become a truly intelligent organisation, the health service needs to make much greater use of the wealth of evidence about effectiveness which its day-to-day activities can potentially provide. Evidence comes in many forms. Each context of health care has its own best configuration of forms of evidence (e.g. process and outcome) and ways of feeding evidence back to staff to help improve effectiveness. A strategy for creating a truly intelligent NHS will involve better routine data systems and more widespread skills in analysing and interpreting data to generate evidence. The single most important key to generating better evidence is getting staff committed to structured recording of clinical data as a valued part of the process of delivering care.