PHIN was appointed as the 'Information Organisation' under the Private Healthcare Market Investigation Order 2014 and is legally required to collect data and publish information, in the form of 'measures'. These cover private hospitals and consultants and the operations they undertake. This article explains more about the process and provides links to details about specific measures.

About using our website
About the datasheets
Read more about each 'Measure'
Protecting Patients’ Privacy

About using our website

We publish information through several different channels, each targeted at a different audience.

Our main publication channel is our web site (phin.org.uk). This searchable, interactive site allows visitors to explore information about hospitals and consultants.  

Using the search tool on the home page, or at the top of every page, people can search for hospitals or consultants who undertake specific operations close to where they live or any other location.

After entering a location and operation, the website presents the visitor with a list of consultants who perform the operation sorted by those closest to the chosen location. The visitor can switch between showing consultants and hospitals. 

This information is designed to help patients make more informed healthcare choices. 

We also publish 'datasheets' which provide similar information to the website but in a format that is easier for people to analyse.

About the datasheets

These resources are mainly aimed at professionals and academics to help them better understand care that is provided, and where improvements can be made. This means they are more complex than the information on the website, but they may still be of interest to some patients. The data is also shared with regulators, public bodies and hospital managers.

Our Datasheets are published in an Excel format because they are designed mainly for people who wish to do their own more detailed analysis of the information or incorporate it into other information resources. 

They cover a 12-month period and are updated every three months.

Protecting Patients’ Privacy

PHIN has processes in place to make sure that the publication of measures on our public-facing channels will never identify individual patients. 

All our measures are compliant with data protection and privacy laws and PHIN uses ‘small number disclosure controls’ (SDC) where appropriate.

Go to datasheets.