The NHS does not know where it is succeeding or failing (HSJ, 11 March 2026)

Summary

The 10-Year Health Plan’s promise to spread best practice through greater transparency risks falling short. Many integrated care boards (ICBs) lack the basic data needed to track whether services meet national standards or identify what works best.

The latest report from the Medical Technology Group on best practice sets out to examine this, looking at how NHS systems presently define, measure and spread good practice across four vital, but neglected, clinical areas: diagnostics, orthopaedics, gynaecology, and continence.

Drawing on Freedom of Information responses from 42 ICBs, it found often a system that cannot learn because it does not have a full and accurate picture of what is really happening on the ground.

The report shows that many ICB leaders lack the basic information required to judge whether their key services meet national standards, let alone whether they are delivering the best possible outcomes for patients. Both systemic infrastructure and data are lacking, with the latter often sitting fragmented across providers.