Series 1, Article 3 of 8 — Charity Data Analytics for ICB Commissioners

What is charity outcomes reporting and why are PROMs central to ICB evidence requirements?

Charity outcomes reporting for ICB commissioners is the structured process of collecting, analysing, and presenting evidence that your service produces measurable improvements in the health and wellbeing of the people it supports. Patient-Reported Outcome Measures — PROMs — are standardised questionnaires completed by service users at baseline and at follow-up intervals, providing a quantitative measure of change that commissioners can compare across providers and over time. Under the 2026 NHS Strategic Commissioning Framework, PROM completion rates and outcome change scores are moving from optional reporting to expected evidence standards for VCSE contracts.

This is Article 3 of our eight-part series on charity data analytics for ICB commissioners. Read Article 1 on performance KPIs and Article 2 on productivity analytics for the full picture.

Which PROM measures do health charities need to report to ICB commissioners?

The specific PROMs your charity uses will depend on your service population and contract requirements. However, the measures that appear most consistently in ICB commissioning conversations for community health and eating disorder services fall into three categories.

Generic wellbeing and quality of life measures include standardised wellbeing scores, quality of life instruments, social function scores, and life satisfaction measures. These give commissioners a person-centred view of whether your service is improving the overall experience of living with a condition — not just reducing clinical symptoms.

Mental health specific PROMs provide condition-specific clinical evidence. For eating disorder services specifically, the Eating Disorder Examination Questionnaire (EDE-Q) is the most widely used validated measure — covering global score, restraint, eating concern, shape concern, and weight concern subscales. For each of these, commissioners will want to see completion rates, baseline scores, follow-up scores, mean change scores, and the percentage of service users who improved, remained stable, or worsened.

Cohort and demographic outcome splits are increasingly required alongside aggregate scores. A mean change score across your full caseload is useful — but a commissioner using population health data will ask whether outcomes differ by age group, ethnicity, or deprivation level. This connects outcomes reporting directly to the equity framework covered in Article 5 of this series.

What is the difference between a good outcome completion rate and a misleading one?

Outcome completion rate — the percentage of service users with both a baseline and at least one follow-up score — is the first number commissioners check when assessing PROM data. A completion rate below 50% raises serious questions about data reliability, regardless of how positive the mean change score appears.

But completion rate alone can be misleading. A charity that only administers follow-up PROMs to service users who complete treatment will show a high completion rate and an artificially positive mean change score — because the people who dropped out before benefiting are excluded from the calculation.

Commissioners are increasingly aware of this issue. The more robust approach is to report outcomes for all service users who received at least a minimum dose of intervention, including partial completers — alongside a separate treatment completion rate and a partial completion rate. This gives a realistic picture of outcomes across the full service population, not just the most engaged cohort.

How do you build a PROM analytics system that satisfies ICB commissioners?

The foundation is consistent data capture. Every service user needs a baseline PROM administered at the point of entering treatment, and at least one follow-up PROM administered at a defined interval — typically at the point of discharge or at a fixed number of weeks into treatment.

Once baseline and follow-up data is captured consistently, a Power BI outcomes dashboard can automatically calculate mean change scores, percentage improved, time to follow-up, and cohort breakdowns — refreshing in real time as new scores are entered. This eliminates the quarterly scramble to manually compile PROM spreadsheets before a commissioner meeting.

Quematics builds outcomes reporting systems for UK health charities that integrate with your existing case management software — connecting PROM data to activity data, demographic data, and pathway data in a single charity analytics dashboard. For context on the commissioning framework driving this requirement, read our analysis of the NHS Strategic Commissioning Framework.

Frequently asked questions

What is a clinically significant change score on the EDE-Q?

A change of 1.19 points on the EDE-Q Global score is generally considered the reliable change index — the minimum change that is unlikely to be due to measurement error. Commissioners will expect you to define and apply your own threshold consistently, and to report what percentage of service users crossed it.

How do you report outcomes for service users who drop out before completing treatment?

Report them separately as a partial completion cohort. If baseline data was collected, include their last available score as the follow-up value — the most conservative and honest approach. Never exclude partial completers from outcome calculations without clearly stating this in your methodology.

What PROM completion rate should a health charity aim for?

A completion rate of 75% or above is generally considered good practice. Below 60%, commissioners will question the reliability of your outcome data. The most effective way to improve completion rates is to embed PROM administration into routine clinical workflow rather than treating it as a separate data collection task.

Can PROMs be used to demonstrate sustained outcomes?

Yes — if your service has a follow-up protocol at a defined interval after discharge, such as three or six months, you can report on whether improvement was maintained. Sustained outcomes data is among the most compelling evidence a health charity can present to an ICB commissioner.