Patients have a right to know that information about them is being accurately recorded

Andrew Foster, Audit Commission

The proposed introduction of electronic health records from 2003 also highlights the importance of accurate records.

The Audit Commission called on trusts and the Department of Health to improve and update data collection.

Bristol link

The commission found that although some trusts prioritise accurate data collection, very few fully comply with basic good practice in collecting information such as waiting times.

One in six trusts are not accurately recording waiting times for cancer referrals.

Under half track the progress of referral letters from GPs once they have been passed to consultants.

In addition, more than 10% of trusts do not follow correct procedures for suspending patients from waiting lists or for recording cancellations.

Basically, hospitals are measuring the wrong things badly

Dr Evan Harris MP, Liberal Democrat health spokesman

Poor information systems were criticised in the report into the deaths of babies undergoing heart operations at Bristol Royal Infirmary, published last year.

Accurate data collection is central to the running of the NHS, said the commission.

Data from local trusts is fed into a national database used to plan future health services.

But the Audit Commission said there were widespread doubts as to whether the data were good enough to be used for that purpose as local statistics could be distorted by a small number of errors.

'Vitally important'

Andrew Foster, Audit Commission controller, said: "It is worrying to see how few hospitals track GP referral letters, and that one in six hospitals aren't accurately recording the waiting time for cancer referrals to meet the two-week target.

"Patients have a right to know that information about them is being accurately recorded, and the public that their taxes are well-spent. Some improvements can be made quickly; others will require investment and commitment over time.

"We will keep focusing on this issue, because it is vitally important for patients."

Dr Gill Morgan, chief executive of the NHS Confederation which represents organisations within the NHS, said: "The more the information is used the more accurate it is likely to be, however, the NHS spends a lot of time feeding the beast - that is collecting information to feed up the line.�

"We need to see much simpler measures set that help people improve the care they deliver at local level."

She told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "Record keeping is very complicated in a hospital. It isn't just down to a small number of people."

She called for government investment so trusts could update information systems: "We're trying to run a 21st century service technology in many cases."

"It needs to be recognised that investment in these management systems, which could run into billions of pounds, is an investment in patient care."

A spokesman for the Department of Health said: "We asked the Audit Commission to look at this area because we wanted to be sure that the quality of NHS data continues to improve.

"Of the NHS Trusts that don't comply with our procedures on data, some could be understating their waiting lists or other sets of figures, but others could actually be overstating their figures."

Dr Kenneth Robertson, head of the Clinical Information Standards Board of the NHS, told BBC News Online the Audit Commission was "absolutely right".

"Data quality in hospitals is poor. There are many reasons, not least of which is the lack of good clinical computer systems, with the result that information is collected in multifarious ways."

Dr Robertson, also a member of the British Medical Association's IT committee, said the problems did not directly affect patient care, but could impact healthcare planning, if decisions were based on inaccurate data.

Dr Evan Harris MP, Liberal Democrat health spokesman, said: "Basically, hospitals are measuring the wrong things badly."