Anyone with an NHS email address can use the Nexus benchmark dashboards for free — no card details, no trial clock, and no need to register your organisation or involve anyone else at your practice. This is not a taster of the paid product that expires: the free tier is permanent.

Free access covers the dashboards built on published NHS data; live clinical features (real-time recall, monitoring compliance, in-year QOF) are part of the optional paid platform — see What's free and what's paid?

Signing up

Go to the sign-up page and choose NHS staff — free benchmark dashboards (or go directly to /signup/nhs). You'll be asked for:

• Full name
• NHS email address — must be @nhs.net or an nhs.uk address
• Your role — e.g. Analyst / Business Intelligence, Primary care team, Commissioning / Transformation, Practice / PCN manager, Clinical lead
• Where do you work? — ICB, PCN, GP practice, or NHS England — then pick your organisation (practices can be searched by name, ODS code or postcode). This sets which dashboard you land on. Choose NHS England and you'll land on the National performance dashboard; you're still asked for the ICB you work with most, so the practice, PCN and ICB comparisons have a starting point.
• Password — at least 8 characters

Press Get free access, then check your email: confirm the link we send you and sign in. Your dashboards are ready immediately — there's no approval wait.

If the confirmation link says "access denied" or that it has expired, the link has already been used — NHS mail security sometimes visits links while scanning your inbox. Your address is confirmed anyway, so just sign in with the password you chose. See Sign-in problems.

What you get

• Practice, PCN and ICB performance dashboards at your declared level, with a scope picker to view any practice, PCN or ICB and see how you compare
• The National performance dashboard — every ICB ranked, with the leading and lagging PCNs and practices across England
• The Funding & equity dashboard
• The Data sources reference page

Everything is public, aggregate data — no patient-identifiable information. A banner in the app reminds you which access you hold.

NHS England staff

Choose NHS England as your organisation type and you'll land on the National performance dashboard each time you sign in, rather than a single ICB. Nothing extra to request — the national view is included for every free account, whatever level you work at.

Upgrading later

If your practice later subscribes to the paid platform, your account can be attached to the organisation with access to its packages — see Joining your organisation's existing account.

Once your account is attached to a subscribing practice, it becomes a full organisation account: at your next sign-in you'll be asked to set up two-factor authentication (see Your first sign-in), and your home page changes from the free benchmarking dashboards to your practice's performance dashboards.

Related articles

• Getting started with dashboards
• Data protection and where the data comes from
• Choosing the right way to sign up