More than 175 NHS health informatics services in England have registered with the Health Informatics Benchmarking Club (HiBC) since its launch in Summer 2008.

The Club enables health informatics services and Information Management and Technology (IM&T) departments to evaluate and benchmark their services with those of other members and, in so doing, identify areas for development or improvement. This is to help them assure the quality of what they do and develop services they know are fit for purpose, both now and in the future.

At the heart of the process is the Benchmarking Information Pack (BIP) which collects the data on which benchmarking is based. Club analysts extract the data, provide reports and share anonymised data amongst members. The BIP is available as an online resource through the HIBC website.

The Club also facilitates specific projects, and members have recently looked at such areas as customer satisfaction, infrastructure, cost of ownership, and equality and diversity. This pooling of expertise to tackle topics of mutual interest has great potential to benefit all members and the wider NHS.

The path towards accreditation will be incremental and continually tested against the NHS needs.  An initial test of the potential accreditation standards and processes was conducted in February/March 2011 with the involvement of several health informatics services, and the lessons learned from this are currently being considered, with a view to determining a way ahead for the work.

More information

If you would like to find out more about the project or contribute to the development of its deliverables, please contact mike.sinclair@nhs.net or  philip.mason@nhs.net.

For access to the Health Informatics Benchmarking Club, visit the HIBC website, or contact Tracy Mundell, the Club Manager, on tracy.mundell@this.nhs.uk.

You can also visit Training Service Accreditation.