2013 February

BBC College of Journalism teams up with Help Me Investigate for health reporting event

We’ve teamed up with the BBC College of Journalism for an event on reporting the new health system that comes into force this year. ‘Journalists and the new health system‘ is bringing together the people who will be scrutinising the new … Continue reading

Too big for Excel? What to do with big datasets

Recently the NICAR mailing list (for journalists who use computer assisted reporting) discussed how they dealt with datasets that were ‘too big for Excel’. With their permission, I’m reproducing a digest of the highlights. How much is too much Dif…

How to: get data out of council budget reports

When councils publish their draft budget reports it’s not always easy to extract the figures that they’re based on. Here then is a guide to getting the data out of budget reports: Get the ball rolling Budget reports are generally presented in PDF …

NHS Merseyside splashes £65K on re-recruiting for their CCGs

Cross-posted from CCG Latest News: NHS Merseyside is spending £65,700 on re-recruiting personnel for four Clinical Commissioning Groups, a freedom of information request has revealed. The four groups are: Sefton CCG – approx. £23,200 Halton CCG – approx. £11,600 St … Continue reading

How-to: Researching people online

Sid Ryan wanted to see if planning applications near planning committee members were more or less likely to be accepted. Part one of the guide showed how to scrape planning applications and assemble them onto a map. This guide shows how to researc…

Document: who’s responsible for what in health?

If you want to get an overview of the different parties involved in the new health system and their roles – including some new players as well as old players with new responsibilities – a recent report from the National Quality Board‘s … Continue reading

Meet the CCG’s with their work cut out

Cross-posted from CCG Latest News: They are taking control in April but some CCGs have a tougher job on their hands than others. Meet three commissioning groups with a big challenge ahead of them. Dr Foster, which supplies intelligence and … Continue reading