Guide to Secondary Data Sources

• Strategic / Business Planning / commissioning decisions

• Project work and pilots

• Individual Funding Reviews

1. What are my information and evidence needs?

2. What is the strength, validity and reliability of this evidence?

3. What is current best practice?

4. What monitoring and evaluation do I need to build in?

5. Who do I need to engage?

• Benchmarking Data

• Contract monitoring and performance data

• Secondary Uses Service (SUS) and/or Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) data

• Finance data

• Patient and Public experience and outcomes

• Key Stakeholder Consultation

• Peer Expertise

• Research and Evaluation Evidence

• NICE Guidelines and Best Practice

• Clinical audit and quality improvement data

• Grey Literature

• Public Health (PH) profiles

• Local PH Teams

• NHS Digital (formerly Health and Social Care Information Centre [HSCIC])

• Commissioning Support

• ICB

• Provider organisations

• HealthWatch

• NHS Evidence

• Library Services

• NICE

• NHS England

• Clinical Senates

• National Benchmarking Service / audit office

• National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) journals library

1. Have I reviewed the evidence base and identified best practice?

2. Have I engaged the appropriate stakeholders?

3. Do I have enough information and evidence to inform my decision making?

4. Have I built in adequate monitoring and evaluation?