Patient Reported Outcome Measures (PROMs) have been collected nationally since April 2009.The PROMs programme covers four common elective surgical procedures: groin hernia operations, hip replacements, knee replacements and varicose vein operations. PROMs are a means of collecting information on the effectiveness of care delivered to NHS patients as perceived by the patients themselves. The collection of this data will add to the set of information available on the care delivered to NHS-funded patients and will complement, and be used in conjunction with, existing information on the quality of services. Data was released for the first time as an experimental statistic in April 2010 at which time the extract service was also launched.

The PROMs dataset is made up of many data items relating to information collected through the Patient Reported Outcome Measures questionnaires completed by patients for a number of common elective procedures. Patients submit the questionnaires before and after their operation in order to establish their perceived levels of health and the impact the operation has had on their quality of life. The PROMs dataset includes responses to individual questions as well as overall totals for a number of different scoring systems for both pre-operative and post-operative questionnaires