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  • NHS and Public Health Datasets for a UK Health Dissertation: What You Can Actually Use in 2026

    NHS and Public Health Datasets for a UK Health Dissertation: What You Can Actually Use in 2026

    The most important fact about NHS data for a UK health dissertation is a rule, not a dataset: since September 2021 the Health Research Authority no longer accepts undergraduate applications for NHS ethics review, so standalone undergraduate research that needs NHS approval “cannot take place”. The published datasets below are how undergraduate and many master’s students in nursing, health sciences, public health and allied health professions do a real project anyway, because every one of them is already collected, already anonymised and already public.

    This guide names the datasets, says what each holds, how you get it, what questions it answers and where it fails. It is the health-specific companion to our catalogue of UK data sources for a dissertation by subject, whose health section is two paragraphs long; this is that section, expanded.

    The rule first: what the HRA position means for your design

    The Health Research Authority’s student research page, last updated on 1 September 2021 and still the published position in August 2026, states that “standalone research at undergraduate level that requires ethics review and/or HRA and HCRW Approval (or devolved administration equivalent) cannot take place”, that undergraduate applications “are no longer being accepted for Research Ethics Committee (REC) review”, that master’s applicants must complete the student research toolkit to check eligibility, and that “arrangements for doctoral research remain unchanged”. The consequence for a taught dissertation is that primary research with NHS patients, NHS staff recruited through the NHS, or identifiable NHS records is off the table at undergraduate level and conditional at master’s level. Secondary analysis of published, anonymised data needs university ethics approval only, through the departmental route described in our guide to ethics approval for an undergraduate dissertation. That is why the datasets below matter.

    The National Centre for Social Research on what the Health Survey for England collects; it is the individual-level route in the table below.

    The datasets

    Dataset Custodian What it holds Access Typical dissertation question
    Fingertips public health profiles Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (DHSC) Indicators by local authority and ICB: smoking, obesity, mental health, inequalities, mortality Free, downloadable, API How does childhood obesity prevalence vary with deprivation across English local authorities?
    GP Patient Survey NHS England, run by Ipsos Annual survey of patient experience by practice, PCN and ICB Free, practice-level results published Is access satisfaction lower in practices with larger list sizes?
    NHS Staff Survey NHS England Annual survey of NHS staff by trust: burnout, bullying, intention to leave Free, trust-level results and benchmark reports Which trust characteristics predict nurse intention to leave?
    Hospital Episode Statistics NHS England Admitted patient care, outpatient and A&E activity Published aggregates free; record-level data requires a data access request Have emergency readmissions within 30 days changed by region?
    Health Survey for England NHS England, with NatCen Annual household survey with measured height, weight, blood pressure Microdata via UK Data Service What is the association between physical activity and self-rated health by age group?
    Prescribing data NHS Business Services Authority Monthly prescriptions dispensed by practice and drug Free statistical collections; OpenPrescribing for analysis How has antibiotic prescribing varied across practices since 2019?
    CQC inspection data Care Quality Commission Ratings and inspection reports for every registered provider Free, downloadable Do care home ratings relate to ownership type?
    ONS health and social care statistics Office for National Statistics Mortality, life expectancy, avoidable deaths, health inequalities Free How has the life expectancy gap between the most and least deprived areas moved since 2015?
    Understanding Society health modules UK Data Service Household panel with GHQ-12, self-rated health, long-term conditions Free registration via university Does financial strain predict later psychological distress?

    Fingertips: the source most health dissertations should start with

    Fingertips describes itself as “a large public health data collection” organised “into themed profiles” that show “local area data alongside relevant comparators”; the site’s own citation line credits the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities, Public health profiles, with the year and the URL under Crown copyright, and the data are released under the Open Government Licence. For a dissertation it offers hundreds of indicators at local authority, region and integrated care board level, each with confidence intervals, deprivation deciles and trend markers, downloadable as CSV or through an API. Who it suits: any question of the form “does outcome X vary with characteristic Y across areas”, which covers most undergraduate public health and nursing projects. Where it fails: it is ecological data, so it cannot tell you anything about individuals, and a dissertation that reads an area-level correlation as an individual-level cause will lose marks for the ecological fallacy. Say the word in your limitations.

    A public health student comparing local authority indicator charts on a laptop beside a printed map of English regions
    Area-level indicators answer area-level questions. The ecological fallacy is the limitation markers expect you to name.

    The two surveys nobody uses enough

    The GP Patient Survey publishes results for every practice in England each year, and the NHS Staff Survey publishes results for every trust. Both are free, both go back more than a decade, and both can be joined to other published characteristics: practice list size and deprivation from Fingertips, trust size and CQC rating from the CQC data. A nursing dissertation asking which organisational factors are associated with staff burnout or intention to leave can be built entirely from the Staff Survey benchmark tables without a single participant being recruited, which is exactly what the HRA position pushes taught students toward. The limitation to state is response bias: the surveys report the views of those who answered, and response rates vary by trust and practice.

    Prescribing, inspections and mortality

    NHS Business Services Authority publishes monthly prescribing statistics by practice, which a student comfortable with a spreadsheet can use to compare, for example, opioid or antibiotic prescribing across practices or over a policy change, and which the OpenPrescribing tool from the University of Oxford makes explorable without downloading anything. CQC publishes ratings and inspection findings for every registered hospital, care home and GP practice, which supports governance and quality questions across the social care sector that no other source covers. ONS health statistics supply mortality, life expectancy and avoidable mortality by area and deprivation, and are the right source for a health inequalities dissertation that wants a trend over time.

    Which dataset for which question: five worked matches

    The table is easier to apply when the question comes first. Five questions taught health students actually propose, and the dataset each one needs.

    • Is smoking in pregnancy more common in more deprived local authorities? Fingertips: the smoking status at time of delivery indicator by upper-tier local authority, read against the deprivation decile the site already attaches to each area. An ecological design; say so in the first line of the methods.
    • Do nurses in trusts rated Inadequate or Requires Improvement report more burnout? NHS Staff Survey benchmark tables by trust for the burnout and intention-to-leave items, merged with CQC ratings by provider on the trust code. Two free downloads and one join.
    • Has antibiotic prescribing per patient fallen since the 2019 antimicrobial resistance action plan? NHS Business Services Authority prescribing data by practice, monthly, expressed per registered patient; OpenPrescribing supplies the denominators so you do not build them by hand.
    • Is physical activity associated with self-rated health in adults over 65? Health Survey for England microdata through the UK Data Service, at the individual level, which makes it the only design on this list that escapes the ecological fallacy altogether.
    • Has the life expectancy gap between the most and least deprived areas widened since 2015? ONS health state life expectancy by deprivation decile for England, published as a repeated cross-section, so the trend is a table rather than a model.

    Notice that four of the five never touch a patient record, and the fifth uses an anonymised survey a student registers for in a week. That is the shape of a taught health dissertation after September 2021: the question is the same one a clinical study would ask, and the data are the published version of the answer.

    Record-level data: what a taught student can and cannot get

    Hospital Episode Statistics at record level, and any identifiable NHS data, require a data access request and a lawful basis that a taught dissertation almost never has. Use the published aggregates instead; NHS England publishes HES summaries by provider, diagnosis and procedure, and they are enough for most descriptive and comparative questions. For individual-level analysis, the Health Survey for England and Understanding Society through the UK Data Service are the routes: both hold measured or self-reported health variables at the individual level, both are anonymised and both are available to students by registration, using the process in our guide to getting UK Data Service data. Note that NHS England, the custodian of HES and the Health Survey for England, absorbed the former NHS Digital in 2023, so older reading lists cite a name that no longer exists.

    A nursing student reviewing a downloaded survey results table with confidence intervals on a laptop in a hospital library
    Every published dataset carries its own limitation: ecological data, response bias, aggregation. Name it before the marker does.

    How to write the methods section for a secondary-data health dissertation

    1. Design. Name it: secondary analysis of published, anonymised data; cross-sectional or repeated cross-sectional; ecological where it is.
    2. Data source. Custodian, dataset, release date, date accessed, and the exact indicators or tables used, with their definitions copied from the metadata rather than paraphrased.
    3. Population and units. Local authorities, practices, trusts or individuals; the year or years; exclusions and the final count.
    4. Ethics. State that the data are published and anonymised, that no participants were recruited, and which university committee approved the project. Cite the HRA position if a reader might wonder why you did not go to the NHS.
    5. Quality appraisal. If the dissertation is a literature-based project rather than a data analysis, the appraisal tools are in our guide to the CASP checklist for a nursing dissertation and the search is built with the method in our guide to the nursing dissertation search strategy.
    6. Analysis. The test, the software, and the sensitivity check; the sample-size logic for area-level regressions is the same as in our guide to sample size for an undergraduate dissertation.

    Where health students lose marks on data

    On two sentences. The first names the custodian and the release; the second names the limitation the dataset carries. A dissertation that says “data were obtained from the NHS” has written neither. If the indicators are downloaded and the methods chapter is still blank, Tesify can draft the data and methods sections from your own source notes, your own indicator definitions and your own counts, in the order a health marker checks them. Every sentence is 100% written by you; what you get is a chapter that exists before the deadline.

    Frequently asked questions

    Can an undergraduate do research with NHS patients for a dissertation?

    Not as a standalone project. Since September 2021 the Health Research Authority no longer accepts undergraduate applications for NHS ethics review, so primary research needing NHS approval cannot take place at that level. Secondary analysis of published data needs only university ethics approval.

    What is the best free NHS dataset for a nursing dissertation?

    The NHS Staff Survey for workforce questions and Fingertips for population health questions. Both are free, published every year and available at trust or local authority level without any application.

    Do I need ethics approval to use published NHS data?

    Not NHS ethics approval. You need your university’s departmental approval, and the methods chapter should state that the data are published and anonymised and that no participants were recruited.

    Can I get Hospital Episode Statistics for my dissertation?

    Published aggregates, yes, free from NHS England. Record-level HES requires a formal data access request and a lawful basis that a taught dissertation almost never has.

    What is the ecological fallacy and why do markers mention it?

    It is the error of reading an association between areas as an association between individuals. Fingertips and ONS area data can show that deprived areas have worse outcomes, not that deprived people do; the limitation must be stated.

    Is NHS Digital still the right name to cite?

    No. NHS Digital merged into NHS England in 2023; cite NHS England as the custodian of Hospital Episode Statistics and the Health Survey for England, and note the former name if your sources use it.

    Can master’s students do primary NHS research?

    Sometimes. The HRA asks master’s applicants to complete its student research toolkit to check eligibility, and some master’s applications are no longer accepted. Check the toolkit before designing a primary study.

    How do I cite Fingertips?

    Use the site’s own line: Office for Health Improvement and Disparities, Public health profiles, the year and the URL, then add the profile, the indicator and the date you downloaded it, in whatever referencing style your department requires.

  • 50 Nursing Dissertation Topics in PICO Format for UK Students, Each With a Review Question (2026)

    50 Nursing Dissertation Topics in PICO Format for UK Students, Each With a Review Question (2026)

    The nursing dissertation topic that fails is not the dull one. It is the one that cannot be turned into a review question with a population, an intervention, a comparison and an outcome, because a UK nursing dissertation is almost always a literature review, and a literature review lives or dies on its question. The fifty topics below cover the four fields of nursing and the areas of practice UK programmes actually assess, and every one is already a one-line PICO or PICo question, so the search, the inclusion criteria and the chapter plan follow from it. If the question is chosen and the proposal is still blank, Tesify drafts the proposal and the review chapters from your own question and your own included studies; the free tier covers the first chapter.

    Why the question comes before the topic

    PICO was set out by Richardson, Wilson, Nishikawa and Hayward in a 1995 ACP Journal Club editorial called “The well-built clinical question”, and it is still the frame UK nursing schools teach because it does three jobs: it tells the database what to search for, it tells you which studies to include, and it tells the marker in one sentence what the review is for. A topic (“pressure ulcers”) does none of those; a question (“in immobile adult inpatients, does two-hourly repositioning, compared with four-hourly, reduce pressure ulcer incidence?”) does all three. Where the question is about experience rather than effect, PICo (the Joanna Briggs Institute’s variant) or SPIDER (Cooke, Smith and Booth, Qualitative Health Research, 2012) applies.

    Framework Elements Use it when the question is about
    PICO Population, Intervention, Comparison, Outcome Whether a nursing intervention works: effectiveness, safety, adherence
    PICo Population, phenomenon of Interest, Context How patients, families or nurses experience something
    SPIDER Sample, Phenomenon of Interest, Design, Evaluation, Research type Qualitative or mixed-methods questions where study design matters

    The Nursing and Midwifery Council’s Standards of proficiency for registered nurses (2018) set out seven platforms, from being an accountable professional to coordinating care, and the fifty questions below are grouped by field and area of practice so that each sits inside one of them; qualitative questions are marked PICo. None repeats the falls and intentional-rounding example worked through in our guide to the nursing dissertation search strategy, which shows how any of these questions becomes a documented search.

    The Oxford Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine on turning a clinical problem into a PICO search question; the fifty questions below are written to that pattern.

    Adult nursing: acute and medical–surgical care

    1. Early warning scores. In adult ward patients, does NEWS2 with a mandated escalation protocol, compared with clinical judgement alone, reduce unplanned admissions to intensive care?
    2. Sepsis bundles. In adults presenting to the emergency department with suspected sepsis, does completion of the Sepsis Six within one hour, compared with later completion, reduce in-hospital mortality?
    3. Pressure ulcer prevention. In immobile adult inpatients, does two-hourly repositioning, compared with four-hourly repositioning on a high-specification foam mattress, reduce pressure ulcer incidence?
    4. Nurse-led discharge. In adults on acute medical wards, does nurse-led discharge, compared with doctor-led discharge, reduce length of stay without increasing 30-day readmission?
    5. Surgical site infection. In adults undergoing elective surgery, does preoperative chlorhexidine body washing, compared with plain soap, reduce surgical site infection?
    6. Post-operative pain. In post-operative adults, does a structured pain assessment tool used at every observation round, compared with unstructured assessment, improve pain scores at 24 hours?
    7. Malnutrition. In older adults admitted to hospital, does screening with the Malnutrition Universal Screening Tool linked to a care plan, compared with screening alone, improve nutritional intake?

    Mental health nursing

    1. Restrictive practice. In adult acute mental health wards, does the Safewards model, compared with usual care, reduce the use of restraint and seclusion?
    2. Observation. In inpatients assessed as at risk of self-harm, does engagement-based intermittent observation, compared with continuous observation, reduce self-harm incidents?
    3. Physical health. In adults with severe mental illness under community teams, does nurse-led physical health monitoring, compared with GP-led monitoring, increase completion of annual cardiometabolic checks?
    4. Crisis care. In adults presenting in mental health crisis, does a crisis resolution and home treatment team, compared with inpatient admission, reduce readmission at twelve months?
    5. Trauma-informed care (PICo). What are the experiences of adult inpatients of trauma-informed care on acute mental health wards in the UK?
    6. Peer support. In adults discharged from acute psychiatric care, does peer support worker follow-up, compared with standard follow-up, reduce readmission within 90 days?
    7. Eating disorders. In adolescents with anorexia nervosa, does family-based treatment, compared with individual therapy, improve weight restoration at twelve months?

    Children’s and young people’s nursing

    1. Procedural pain. In children undergoing venepuncture, does distraction with a tablet device, compared with standard comfort measures, reduce self-reported pain?
    2. Paediatric early warning. In hospitalised children, does a paediatric early warning score, compared with unstructured observation, reduce unplanned admissions to paediatric intensive care?
    3. Parental presence. In children undergoing induction of anaesthesia, does parental presence, compared with premedication alone, reduce preoperative anxiety?
    4. Asthma self-management. In school-age children with asthma, does nurse-led self-management education, compared with usual care, reduce emergency attendances?
    5. Transition (PICo). What are the experiences of young people with long-term conditions of the transition from children’s to adult services in the UK?
    6. Bronchiolitis. In infants admitted with bronchiolitis, does high-flow nasal cannula therapy, compared with standard oxygen, reduce escalation of treatment?
    A nursing student's notebook with a question written out in four labelled parts beside a laptop showing a database search screen
    Write the four elements on one line before you open CINAHL. The search string, the inclusion criteria and the chapter plan all come from that line.

    Learning disability nursing

    1. Annual health checks. In adults with a learning disability, do annual health checks in primary care, compared with usual care, increase detection of unmet health needs?
    2. Reasonable adjustments (PICo). What are the experiences of adults with a learning disability of reasonable adjustments during a hospital admission?
    3. Diagnostic overshadowing. In adults with a learning disability presenting with physical symptoms, does use of a hospital passport, compared with none, reduce delayed diagnosis?
    4. Positive behaviour support. In adults with a learning disability whose behaviour challenges services, does positive behaviour support, compared with usual care, reduce psychotropic prescribing?

    Older people, dementia and community nursing

    1. Delirium. In hospitalised adults over 65, does a multicomponent delirium prevention programme, compared with usual care, reduce incident delirium?
    2. Pain in dementia. In people with dementia unable to self-report, does routine use of an observational pain tool, compared with usual assessment, increase appropriate analgesia?
    3. Hospital at home. In frail older adults with an acute illness, does hospital-at-home care, compared with inpatient admission, reduce six-month mortality and care home admission?
    4. Continence. In older adults in care homes, does prompted voiding, compared with usual care, reduce episodes of urinary incontinence?
    5. Living alone (PICo). What are the experiences of older adults living alone of community nursing visits in the UK?
    6. Polypharmacy. In adults over 75 taking ten or more medicines, does a structured medication review by a nurse prescriber, compared with usual care, reduce adverse drug events?

    Infection prevention and patient safety

    1. Hand hygiene. In acute hospital staff, does electronic monitoring with feedback, compared with direct observation audit, improve hand hygiene compliance?
    2. Catheter infection. In adult inpatients with a urinary catheter, does a daily review-and-remove prompt, compared with usual care, reduce catheter-associated urinary tract infection?
    3. Medication errors. In hospital nurses, does a protected medication round with a no-interruption tabard, compared with usual practice, reduce administration errors?
    4. Handover. In acute wards, does structured SBAR handover, compared with unstructured handover, reduce missed care?
    5. Venous thromboembolism. In medical inpatients, does nurse-led VTE risk assessment on admission, compared with medical-led assessment, increase timely prophylaxis?
    6. Safety huddles. In inpatient wards, do daily safety huddles, compared with none, reduce reported patient harm events?

    Workforce, education and leadership

    1. Shift length. In UK registered nurses, is twelve-hour shift working, compared with eight-hour shifts, associated with higher burnout?
    2. Preceptorship (PICo). What are the experiences of newly registered nurses of preceptorship in NHS trusts?
    3. Skill mix. In acute wards, is a higher proportion of registered nurses in the staffing mix, compared with a lower proportion, associated with lower patient mortality?
    4. Simulation. In pre-registration nursing students, does high-fidelity simulation, compared with lecture-based teaching, improve recognition of clinical deterioration?
    5. Compassion fatigue. In oncology nurses, does a resilience training programme, compared with none, reduce compassion fatigue scores?
    6. Retention. Which factors are associated with intention to leave among early-career nurses in the NHS?

    End-of-life and palliative care

    1. Advance care planning. In adults with advanced heart failure, does nurse-led advance care planning, compared with usual care, increase documented preferences and death in the preferred place?
    2. Dying in hospital (PICo). What are the experiences of family members of end-of-life care on acute hospital wards?
    3. Breathlessness. In adults with advanced cancer, does a nurse-led breathlessness intervention, compared with usual care, improve breathlessness scores?
    4. Anticipatory prescribing. In community palliative care patients, does anticipatory medication prescribing, compared with reactive prescribing, reduce emergency admissions in the last week of life?

    Long-term conditions and public health

    1. Type 2 diabetes. In adults with type 2 diabetes, does nurse-led structured education, compared with usual care, reduce HbA1c at twelve months?
    2. Smoking cessation. In hospital inpatients who smoke, does nurse-delivered brief advice with referral, compared with advice alone, increase quit rates at six months?
    3. Heart failure. In adults discharged after a heart failure admission, does nurse-led telephone follow-up, compared with usual care, reduce 30-day readmission?
    4. COPD. In adults with COPD, does nurse-led self-management with a written action plan, compared with usual care, reduce hospital admissions?
    Printed research papers sorted into three piles on a desk with coloured tabs, beside a completed appraisal checklist and a highlighter
    A good question yields eight to fifteen primary studies from the last ten years. Fewer means widen the population; more means narrow the outcome.

    How to test a topic in an afternoon

    Three checks before the question goes in the proposal. First, search: put the population and intervention terms into CINAHL and MEDLINE, limit to the last ten years, and count the primary studies. Eight to fifteen is the range an undergraduate review can appraise properly; fewer than five means the question is too narrow or too new, more than forty means the outcome or population needs tightening. Second, check the outcome is measured the way the studies measure it: “patient experience” needs qualitative studies, “reduces readmission” needs trials or cohort studies reporting it. Third, check UK applicability: NICE guidance or a national programme on the topic gives you the implications section.

    Whether the result is a literature review or a systematic review is a matter of scale and method, and the difference is set out in our guide to literature review versus systematic review for a dissertation. If your programme allows a secondary-data project instead, the published NHS datasets a taught student can use without NHS ethics approval are catalogued in our guide to NHS and public health datasets for a dissertation; the Staff Survey and prescribing questions above can be answered from those data directly.

    What the marker is looking for

    Consistency. The question in the introduction has to be the one the search was built for, the one the inclusion criteria enforce, the one each study is appraised against and the one the synthesis answers. The commonest way a nursing dissertation drops a band is drift: the question says “adult inpatients”, and the search returned paediatric studies that were then included. The second is an appraisal chapter that describes the studies without judging them; the tools that stop that are in our guide to the CASP checklist for a nursing dissertation.

    The narrowing method that turns any of the fifty into a title the supervisor will sign is the one used across subjects in our pillar on dissertation topic ideas by subject: choose the population you can defend, the outcome you can measure and the setting you can write about.

    From one line to a proposal, with Tesify

    The stall point is rarely the question. It is the fortnight after, when the proposal form asks for aims, objectives, a search plan and a chapter outline, and the student with a good PICO question has a blank form.

    1. Paste the question. Tesify reads the four elements and drafts the aim, objectives and rationale around them in the British academic register your handbook expects.
    2. Build the search plan. Databases, search terms with synonyms and truncation, and inclusion criteria drawn from the question, ready to run in CINAHL and paste into the methods chapter.
    3. Add your included studies. Enter the studies you have appraised and Tesify structures the findings and synthesis chapters around your evidence.
    4. Edit with the AI Editor. A final read for clarity, consistent terms and British spelling, so the question in chapter one matches the answer in chapter five.

    The free tier covers the first chapter, and the text is yours to export at any point. Start with your question and let Tesify draft the proposal around it today. The judgement, the appraisal and every sentence remain 100% written by you; what you get is a dissertation that exists on the day the form is due.

    Frequently asked questions

    Do UK nursing dissertations have to be literature reviews?

    On most pre-registration programmes, yes, because the Health Research Authority has not accepted undergraduate applications for NHS ethics review since September 2021. Some programmes allow a secondary analysis of published data or a service improvement proposal; check your module handbook.

    Is PICO the only framework I can use?

    No. PICO fits questions about whether an intervention works; PICo or SPIDER fit questions about experience. Either is acceptable as long as the framework matches the studies you intend to include.

    How many studies should a nursing literature review include?

    Most UK undergraduate reviews appraise between six and twelve primary studies in full, with the search documented and exclusions accounted for; a master’s review is usually larger. The number follows from the question.

    Can I use a topic from my placement?

    Yes, provided the question is in PICO form and answered from published evidence rather than anything observed or recorded on placement. Never include patient or staff information from the placement itself.

    Is using Tesify on a nursing dissertation academic misconduct?

    Not where your university permits AI assistance and you follow its declaration rules. Tesify structures and drafts from your own question and your own appraised studies; the appraisal, the synthesis and the final text are yours, declared where your handbook asks.

    How much does Tesify cost?

    There is a free tier that covers the first chapter and the core drafting and bibliography features. Paid plans are priced for students in pounds and can be cancelled at any time.

    Does Tesify store patient or placement data?

    Never enter patient, staff or placement data into any writing tool; a literature review does not need any. Tesify works from your question, your included published studies and your own drafting, and the text remains yours.

    Can I change the question after the proposal is approved?

    Usually, with your supervisor’s agreement, and narrowing is the commonest change. Widening the population or swapping the outcome after the search means re-running it, so settle the question first.