Data Quality in ESR

Poor data quality can impact upon every aspect of the workforce from vacancy management to leaver analyses, from employee details to aggregate staff reports, from pay to pension.

Data from ESR enables analysis and monitoring across a wide range of policies and activities including: workforce information and planning, pay and reward, commissioning, statistics for FOI and PQs, diversity and inclusion, regulation, etc...

As highlighted in the recent Data Quality Webinars, ESR provides a variety of data quality resources to assist organisations in monitoring and improving their data.

A couple of examples are given below:

ESR NHS Data Quality Dashboard

The Data Quality Dashboard was initially designed to replicate the monthly WoVEn reports produced by NHS Digital. However, since its introduction a number of additional validations have been added to enable organisations to monitor many aspects of their data from missing email addresses to incorrect Registration details.

The Dashboard provides a high level Summary to show the number of errors for each validation and also has tabs to show the detail of the errors.

Organisations should, where possible, try to monitor this report frequently to address any errors as and when they occur, rather than waiting for the monthly WoVEn process to highlight issues.

Where a significant number of errors reoccur for the same validation, organisations should consider if a change is required to the local process linked to the validation (e.g. a high number of missing email addresses for new starters each month).

If you have any suggestions for additional Data Quality Validations that you think should be added to the national Dashboard then please raise an SR via the ESR Service Desk.

Workforce Information Verifier Dashboard

The Workforce Information Verifier Dashboard has been developed to help identify possible discrepancies between Occupation Code, Staff Group/Job Role and Pay Band that may exist within Assignments and their related Positions held in the ESR.

The tool was initially created in 2013 in partnership with NHS Digital to assist organisations in improving their data quality.  It has since been replicated in BI meaning that it can be run as and when required to see the ‘latest picture’.  The formulas within the analysis are updated after each National Workforce Dataset (NWD) release to reflect any changes, as well as any other ad-hoc changes which may be required as a result of trust feedback.

Any changes to the Verifier tool need to be considered by the national Workforce Information Review Group (WIRG) before we can implement into ESR BI.  Queries or requests for change should be sent to enquiries@nhsdigital.nhs.uk

NMC, GMC, HCPC & UID Reports

As well as the DQ reports available through ESRBI, we also send monthly reports to designated contacts at each organisation. These are produced by our Data Analysis Team and assist with Registration monitoring in ESR as well as Unique ID Monitoring.

Other Data Quality resources

• NHS Recruitment Dashboard (Vacancy monitoring)
• NHS Pensions Dashboard

Further information on all reports can be found in the HR Best Practice Guide on KBase here.

There are some organisations that don’t have a designated contact and therefore are not receiving these reports.

Please contact esr.datateam@nhs.net if you would like to update your organisations contact(s).

As a result of the resources made available, improved local processes, the roll-out of the ESR Portal enabling employees to ‘own their own data’ through Self Service and the launch of the Workforce Equality Standards for Race & Disability we have seen a significant improvement in Data Quality, particularly in relation to protected characteristics - some of which have been historically poorly populated. However, further work is required to continue the progress.

Did you know?

Following the recent Data Quality webinars we’ve produced a fact sheet based on the questions we received during the webinars which can be found here.