HC Deb 06 July 1999 vol 334 c493W
30. Mr. David Davis

To ask the Secretary of State for Health what arrangements are being made independently to audit the relevance and accuracy of NHS waiting list figures. [88268]

Mr. Denham

The management processes which support data management and their data outputs, including National Health Service waiting list data, are independently audited within Data Accreditation, which was launched in August 1997. Data Accreditation is currently voluntary but it is intended that elements of it should become mandatory from April 2000.

Departmental statisticians working to their professional code of practice also carry out regular reviews of the needs for the statistics collected, which include the relevance of the data, and carry out validation checks on waiting list data before they are published.