The National Consultant Information Programme (NCIP) has produced a new guide for trust medical directors and senior clinical leaders to embed the use of its data into routine governance and appraisal processes.  

NCIP provides consultant activity and outcomes data for over 500 procedures across a range of surgical specialties. It aims to promote a learning culture in which consultants regularly review and evaluate their surgical practice. It also supports medical directors, responsible officers and specialty clinical leads to manage clinical leadership and oversight. 

The new guide encourages clinical leaders to establish trust-wide use of NCIP’s data and the insights it offers for improving patient outcomes and reducing unwarranted variation in clinical practice. 

It sets out why NCIP matters; how it provides meaningful consultant activity data for appraisal and revalidation, and how it supports national priorities including elective recovery, patient safety, and the CQC well-led framework which focuses on leadership and organisational governance.  

Each section provides practical steps, examples, and resources to support trust-wide adoption among consultants and clinical leaders, including embedding NCIP into consultant appraisals, morbidity and mortality (M&M) reviews and clinical audit, and how to improve data quality. The guide may be used as an onboarding manual, implementation roadmap and a reference document to support governance and quality improvement.