Our expertise is in making the most out of routinely collected health data to improve care for patients. Whether it’s stimulating NHS moves to provide 24/7 high-quality care, alerting the Care Quality Commission to problems at Mid Staffordshire Trust, providing a basis for better consultant cover during the junior doctor changeover, or evaluating the implementation of clinical guidelines, our aim is to improve the quality and safety of patient care in all NHS hospitals. By converting health data to meaningful action, we provide a key step in the quality improvement efforts of the NHS.

The unit was established in 2002 and is directed by Professor Paul Aylin, Professor in Epidemiology and consultant in Public Health, and Professor Alex Bottle, Professor of Medical Statistics. The unit sits within the Department of Primary Care and Public Health in the School of Public Health and brings together a mix of skills including computer programming, data management, statistics, epidemiology and public health. Due to our excellent links with other departments at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust and beyond, we can also draw upon a wealth of clinical expertise, particularly in primary care, surgery and acute medicine. Despite our small size, the unit has an excellent publication record with articles in leading academic journals, including the BMJ and JAMA Surgery.

We have established a research database based on Hospital Episodes Statistics (HES) data linked to the national death register. This has ethical approval to look at themes of measuring and exploring variations in the quality and safety of care (REC ref 25/LO/0436 following a Favourable Opinion in June 2025, so renewed for another 5 years). We hold HES data back to 2000. The database is open to any researcher who wishes to work with us under a relevant theme - contact one of the directors for more information.