1. Patient Safety Dashboard
Using Statistical Process Control and Data Visualisation to make sense of data

2. NHS Safety Thermometer
Collected 1 day every month
Monitors prevalence of harm in all patients
Visualisations available at
Datasets available at

3. Examples of available visualisations

4. Some issues…. Difficult to see exact values for Trusts and harms
Only comparison with National level
Funnel plot time period unclear
Can’t identify individual trusts, and too much dispersion

5. What can we do?
We have pulled together data for trusts in Yorkshire into an interactive dashboard:
Shows latest 2 years of data for a Trust harm, with a funnel plot showing Trust comparison for the previous month
Comparison to National and Yorkshire & Humber
Available online or through an Excel file

6. Example Charts

7. Version 2! In development – test version available
Can choose start month and baseline period
Option to display where SPC rules have been triggered
Can navigate through monthly funnel plots to compare

8. V2 Screenshot

9. Conclusions
Data can be made much more meaningful and accessible by tweaking the presentation
Sometimes this takes some work, get feedback from users where possible
If your work is used repeatedly over time, periodically revisit to see how it can be improved
If something is available nationally, don’t assume this is the best way to present the data – think for yourself based on your experience with what works!