Frequently Asked Questions

CORC does not mandate the collection and submission of any particular measure. The most important thing to keep in mind in choosing measures is that they are meaningful to your service and the work that you do.

We have information on using outcome measures that may be helpful to review in choosing which measures will be appropriate for your service to implement. Further training in choosing outcome measures is also available as part of our annual training programme. Please see the Membership models page for more information on further support available to Members.

Different measures have different copyright specifications that may or may not allow for modification. However, we recommend services keep the existing wording of measures where possible. If you do wish to make modifications to any measure, we suggest that you contact the copyright holders directly. Please note that any modifications to standardised measures will mean your data will not be comparable to that collected by other CORC members. If you wish to submit data from a modified version of a measure, we ask that you get in touch with us beforehand to discuss this. 

Information on how you can submit data to CORC can be found on our Sending Data to CORC page.

We ask that you submit a completed CORC+ Member Pro-forma or CORC Snapshot Member Pro-Forma along with your data. The pro-forma provides us with key information about the data you have submitted, and what you hope to gain from your annual report. Please visit our Sending Data to CORC page to download any relevant documents. 

CORC does not mandate the collection and submission of any particular measure. The most important thing about the measures you use is that they are meaningful to your service and the work that you do. CORC has compiled a library of commonly used outcome measures which we currently accept, and for which we can provide benchmarking information against the CORC dataset as part of your service/ organisation CORC report. 

The list of measures in our specification is not exhaustive. There are many other outcome tools available that services find meaningful for their particular work. If you are using a measure that is not a part of our current specifications, there is the option to request bespoke analysis of this measure as part of your report. This is generally assessed on a case-by-case basis by the team. Contact the CORC team for more information on bespoke analysis of measures.

No. It is very important that all data submitted to CORC is anonymized before being submitted. CORC is unable to accept any personally identifiable information (e.g. NHS Number, date of birth, service user name). If your submission contains any of this data we will immediately delete the file and contact you about re-submitting.

We recommend that you explain to young people and parents/carers why you are asking them to complete questionnaires and what the information is going to be used for, and that you offer them a named contact to whom they can address any questions or concerns. CORC have created some animations and training videos to support you working with children and young people. Please get in touch if there is any further resources which you would find helpful.

We advise all services planning to submit data to CORC to follow their organisation’s local requirements for Information Governance. The question of whether explicit consent from service users is needed will depend on your local context and what the information is going to be used for. Your organisation may find it helpful to refer to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) “Anonymization: managing data protection risk code of practice” for guidance on this matter.

You can find more information on what the CORC annual report looks like and the types of analyses that we offer on our Sending Data to CORC page.

There are many different systems available for recording and storing electronic patient records, and service-user outcome data. Every system has various features and different pros/cons. CORC does not have any preference for which database or electronic system is used; however we do have a list of important questions to ask of potential IT providers (see question below) if you are in the process of procuring a system. Regardless of what system you use to store your data, the data you submit must match either the CORC+ variable specification or CORC Snapshot variable specification.

Data in the CORC+ and CORC Snapshot formats are ‘de-identified’. This means they do not contain information from which service users can be readily identified (e.g. names, addresses, and NHS numbers). From the perspective of the CORC team receiving the data, the data are anonymised.

Prior to sharing your data with CORC it is important that you ensure you satisfy your organisation’s local requirements for information governance. Your organisation may find it helpful to refer to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) “Anonymization: managing data protection risk code of practice”, for assurance regarding sharing anonymised data.

CORC is unable to accept any personally identifiable information (e.g. service user names, addresses, NHS IDs, dates of birth). If your submission contains any of this data we will immediately delete the file and contact you about re-submitting.

CORC analyses data at the level of the “period of contact”. This means we define each unique record as a child or young person who has attended the service for a single spell of care.

If a child has attended a service, completed treatment and then attended the service again at a later date such that a new case was opened, we would count this as two separate “periods of contact”, or two distinct records, in our analysis.

As the report focuses on children’s outcomes over time, CORC will look across all unique records in your data to find “paired cases” for each outcome measure you use. “Paired cases” means the same measure has been completed by the same person, about the same child, during the same period of contact, at least two times.

We analyse data for all measures that have 10 or more paired cases, and display this information (along with supporting demographics and data completeness information) in your report.

Yes. CORC can offer bespoke analysis for reports. We assess requests for bespoke analysis on a case-by-case basis, but some examples of bespoke analysis we could provide are:

• Filtering the cases you are benchmarked against in the report (e.g. only looked-after cases, or children aged 8-12)
• Analysis of measures not usually included in the CORC data specifications
• Bespoke data completeness figures If you are interested in receiving bespoke analysis for your report, please contact the CORC Team.

CORC have compiled the following questions:

1. Does the system export data in a format that can be submitted to CORC and/or NHS Digital?
2. Has the system already been used to submit data to CORC and/or NHS Digital?
3. If the CORC or NHS Digital data set specifications are updated, how long will changes to the system take?
4. How securely are the data held by the system? Has the system been tested for security weaknesses and what was the result?
5. Does the system offer a “service-user/patient portal” – a secure webpage on which service users can directly enter questionnaires? Does it work on iPads or tablets? Smartphones?
6. What reports can the system make of data? E.g. graphs of change over time, clinical bands, reliable change?
7. Is it possible to do custom exports, e.g., for analysis at your service using Excel or a statistical programme?

Full CORC members can receive one day of bespoke, on-site support per year from a Regional Support Officer. This could cover, for example, information on routine outcome measures, support with using measures in clinical practice or assistance with interpreting outcomes data. Additional information about what training and support is included in your organisation’s membership can be found on Membership models page.

You can register for upcoming trainings by clicking on the training you are interested in on our Training and Events page and completing the booking details that follow.

You can find more information about who we are and what we do here.

Our mission is to promote the meaningful use of evidence to enable more effective and child-centred support, services and systems to improve children and young people’s mental health and wellbeing. You can find case studies of CORC members who have used routine outcome measurement to improve services in our Resource Hub, as well as thought pieces and links to recent research in the field on our News & Blogs page. Our trainings and events provide further opportunity to learn about outcome measurement in CAMHS and to connect with and learn from others across the country. CORC members can also log in to our Members area where they will find information relevant to CORC members across the UK and abroad.

From 2012 to 2015 CORC was commissioned to manage the data submission and reporting for the Children and Young People’s Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (CYP IAPT) programme. As of December 2015 CORC no longer manages data submissions or reporting for the CYP IAPT programme.The data that CYP IAPT services used to submit quarterly to CORC should now be submitted to NHS Digital as part of the Mental Health Services Data Set (MHSDS). More information on these submissions can be found on the NHS Digital website.