Links: Andrew Lansley ordered to reveal NHS reforms risks report

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The Health Department has been ordered by the Information Commissioner to make public a report into the risks raised by NHS reforms.

Officials had previously refused FOI requests to supply the report because it “jeopardised the success of [government] policy”.

The Evening Standard, which asked for a review of the department’s refusal, reports on the decision:

“The document is expected to reveal the risks to patient safety, finances and the very workings of the NHS from the unprecedented reshaping of the health service.

“… In his ruling, [Information Commissioner Christopher]  Graham said: “Disclosure would significantly aid public understanding of risks related to the proposed reforms and it would also inform participation in the debate about the reforms.””

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Referral to Treatment times (RTT) per PCT March to August 2011

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Details taken from the Department of Health website:

The Referral To Treatment (RTT) data collections monitor the length of time from referral through to treatment.

Monthly RTT data has been published since March 2007. Initially data was only published for patients whose RTT pathways ended in admission for treatment. Since August 2007, monthly data has also been published for non-admitted patients (those whose RTT pathways ended for reasons other than admission for treatment) and for incomplete pathways (those still active at the end of the reporting month). Adjusted admitted RTT data has been published since March 2008 – this data set reports admitted patient RTT times allowing for clock pauses, in line with published RTT clock rules.

This map and datatable show the RTT stats and how PCT’s did seeing patients within the 18 week target. The yellow icons in the map indicate where a Trust has seen below 90% of patients in under 18 weeks.

Here’s a link to a datatable where you can query the data. What can you discover by looking at this data? Would you like more RTT data or have the same data in different formats?

You can request data on any health topic and I can check if it’s available and help to make the data presentable.

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Patient safety data October 2010 to March 2011

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If you require information on patient safety for your PCT I have created a dashboard where you can select the PCT in question and see the figures from the National Patient Safety Agency datatables.

You can access the underlying data from the dashboard by using the icons at the bottom of the dashboard.

 

I have taken the National Patient Safety Agency (NPSA) data from the August 2011 release and created a dashboard, according to the NPSA the underlying data is:

The sixth release of the Organisation Patient Safety Incident Reports data for NHS organisations in England and Wales was on 13 September 2011. The release covers incidents that occurred between 01 October 2010 and 31 March 2011 and were reported to the National Reporting and Learning System (NRLS) by 31 May 2011.

I have used data on small to large acute hospitals, teaching hospitals, acute teaching and specialist hospitals, as well as mental health and ambulance organisations.

The information in the dashboard covers how many incidents were reported, the rate of incidents per 10000 people, the degrees of harm caused to patients and the time taken on average for incidents to be reported.

The patient safety data is released on the NSPA site alongside reports for each trust. There is however data missing from some trusts, although in the majority of cases the data is complete.

Can you help?

If there’s data missing for a particular Trust, can you help to find it?

If you would like to see or have other data relating to patient safety just get in contact.

More data to come…

I’ll be adding more publicly available health data over the next few weeks and I’m more than happy to chat about finding and cleaning up specific health related datasets.

(cross posted with my blog carlplant.me)

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Data: Freedom of information request statistics for NHS Trusts (as of 23/10/2011)

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Carl Plant has blogged about gathering data on what FOI requests have been made to NHS trusts using the website What Do They Know. He writes:

“I’ll share the datatable so that others can see how FOI requests are being asked of NHS Trusts and also show the top 10 results (in descending order) for:

  • Successful requests
  • Long overdue requests
  • Rejected requests”

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Links: NHS payoffs and middle class drinking

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“The use of “interim” management in the NHS was justified by several of the organisations as solving specific short-term problems while long term plans were drawn up.

“But many of the arrangements uncovered by The Sunday Telegraphlasted for more than a year, despite the rocketing bills.”

“The report, by 2020 Health, a centre-right think tank, says many middle class drinkers are not aware of the risks of their evening tipple, with couples who share a bottle of wine over dinner most evenings unwittingly increasing their chances of cancer and strokes.”

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AUDIO: Pharmacies competing with NHS dispensaries

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You And Yours reports today on private pharmacies using the Freedom of Information Act to identify the most profitable regions in Scotland to set up shop – leading to the closure of practice-based dispensaries.

Sadly there’s no information online other than the full broadcast, but there’s some background on BBC News Scotland: Continue reading →

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Data: patient numbers by GP practice in Birmingham East and North

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As part of an investigation into GP surgery sizes in Birmingham I’ve collected some initial data on GP sizes from Birmingham East and North Primary Care Trust.

The data was gathered through submitting an FOI request after direct approaches took too long.

The response to the FOI request with a link to the spreadsheet is available here.

It gives patient numbers for GP surgeries as of the end of June: these vary wildly from over 37,000 at the biggest surgery to a few hundred at the smallest.

Sadly the key information – how many GPs are employed at each surgery to respond to those patients – was not supplied. The accompanying email did mention 367 GPs on the medical performers list, which averages out at 4.7 per surgery – but it’s also not clear how many of those are employed full time or, indeed, practising at all.

I am now waiting for the remainder of the data requested.

UPDATE: I’ve just discovered a PDF with GP practice data for the whole of England on the Prescription Pricing Division’s FOI disclosure pages. Seems that may have been a better avenue than individual PCTs. Now, to extract that data from the PDF…

In the meantime, here’s a quick visualisation of the data using Google Fusion Tables. Those in the top quartile of surgeries based on patient numbers have a large red marker; those in the third quartile (above average) have a large yellow marker. Those in the second quartile (below average) have a small green dot; and those in the bottom quartile have a small blue dot. It doesn’t really tell you anything other than where to look, and that possibly there are more large surgeries in the north than the south.

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