Secondary Uses Service (SUS)

SUS is a system designed to provide patient-based data and information for management and clinical purposes other than direct patient care. The data is made available through the NHS Care Records Service. SUS includes functions such as healthcare planning, commissioning, public health, clinical audit, benchmarking, performance improvement, research and clinical governance.

The SUS helps the NHS to understand public health trends, to analyse the effectiveness of different treatments and to plan and allocate resources to meet patient demand.

Access to the system is governed through rigorous controls to protect patient confidentiality, and relevant data is automatically disguised using pseudonyms.

The SUS will provide a single secure data environment for the NHS to better plan its services. This will allow effective, consistent and comprehensive analysis of health trends which allows efficient allocation of resources and benefits research.

SUS already supports Payment by Results which is changing the way money flows through the NHS.