Website of the Department of Health

Better information is not simply about numbers. It is about making lives better.

What impresses me most is the way that innovation in information can - and already does - have real, measurable impact on improvements in the quality and effectiveness of health and social care.

Some of the innovators are in this room tonight: the doctors and managers responsible for reducing death rates in Walsall hospital by more than 30 per cent, the GPs in Milton Keynes pioneering a new, fast system for identifying people most at risk of unnecessary repeated hospital stays who should better be treated in the community; the ambulance service in Merseyside which has improved its patient response times by more than 70 per cent.

Information is the key to an NHS that is really responsive to the needs of those it serves and can help them make the most informed and effective decisions.

The establishment of the Health and Social Care Information Centre reflects the government's commitment to promoting better information resources in health and social care.  The launch of this innovative joint venture between public and private sector underlines the need to ensure that this information is utilised to make a difference to the delivery and management of such care.

Dr Foster Intelligence brings together public service ethos and private sector enterprise in a unique partnership. It will stimulate the creation of other ventures - in the public, private and voluntary sectors - to encourage the use of information in intelligent, accessible and timely ways.

We have high expectations of this new organisation: to innovate and to support real measurable improvement.

The publication last week of the White paper 'Our Health, Our Care, Our Say' provides an opportunity to look, with a fresh eye, at how the wider information needs such as at the interface between health and social care, can be developed to help staff at the front line of care.  This will be a key activity of Dr Foster Intelligence.