PROMs are structured questionnaires given to patients who are having surgery, or any type of health intervention, to assess their health status and how that then changes after treatment.

Promoting clinical insight and improving patient experience

The use of PROMs provides a key opportunity to measure and report on clinical outcomes (patient health) from the people who have treatment with the aim of promoting improvements and clinical insight. This includes orthopaedic procedures such as knee replacements or hip replacements, but also a range of other elective procedures (those that are scheduled rather than an emergency).

The UK’s healthcare providers have different objectives and requirements, but improving patient experience and health should be central to everyone’s work. The Network brings people together to compare and exchange experiences of data collection and processing to measure patient outcomes, with the objective of demonstrating clinical effectiveness and improving the quality of care.

Working together

Kanthan Theivendran, National PROMs Network Clinical Lead, said:

"We're delighted to welcome PHIN as our 100th member, building on our work to bring together people and organisations with a passion for PROMs. PHIN brings a wealth of additional experience covering a range of medical specialties which adds great value to the network and its members. We really look forward to working with their team."

Greg Swarbrick, who manages PHIN’s Strategic Projects including PROMs, said:

“The Network provides an opportunity for us to both learn from colleagues across the healthcare sector who are working on national PROMs programmes and to share our own experiences and expertise from the private sector to improve PROMs collection, PROMs data and ultimately patients’ quality of life.

“There has been a recognition that there should be mutual awareness and opportunities for shared learning, and potentially co-ordination between the private sector and NHS on PROMs. This is especially important if we want a robust source for benchmarking our data.

“We look forward to engaging with the Network and further developing our work on PROMs so that we can help all patients to make more informed healthcare decisions.”

Anji Kingman, National PROMs Network Co-ordinator and founding member, added:

"We're very excited to have PHIN join us to increase our collective expertise in the world of PROMs. Our members work in clinical, academic and data analysis settings, sharing experiences and knowledge to support best PROMs practice, so this is a fabulous opportunity for us to learn from the PHIN team! We know they have developed a culture of the collection, analysis and reporting of PROMs and hope that joining us will support further development of that."

Find out more about PROMs and the Network

To find out more about the benefits of PROMs for patients, clinicians and hospitals and read insights into the data we collect and how it paints a picture of patients’ journeys see: https://www.phin.org.uk/news/insights-from-patient-reported-outcome-measures-proms

Visit the National PROMs Network for more information.