{"id":902,"date":"2014-04-10T08:47:50","date_gmt":"2014-04-10T08:47:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helpmeinvestigate.com\/health\/?p=902"},"modified":"2021-10-22T07:03:29","modified_gmt":"2021-10-22T07:03:29","slug":"6-great-places-to-find-data-on-health-in-england-scotland-wales-and-northern-ireland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/helpmeinvestigate.com\/health\/2014\/04\/10\/6-great-places-to-find-data-on-health-in-england-scotland-wales-and-northern-ireland\/","title":{"rendered":"6 great places to find data on health in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland"},"content":{"rendered":"

Where do you find data to put your story into context – or give you ideas for stories in the first place? Here are some of the places that come in handy for understanding health in England and the UK as a whole:<\/p>\n

1. Indicator Portal (HSCIC)<\/h2>\n

The Health and Social Care Information Centre<\/strong>‘s (HSCIC)\u00a0Indicator Portal<\/a><\/strong> is a treasure trove providing detail down to GP surgery or hospital level on everything from mortality and disease prevalence to patient experience.<\/p>\n

But it also includes socioeconomic data<\/strong>, like the proportion of people in an area who have been out of work for over a year, the number of robberies in an area, and homelessness, plus education and environmental factors.<\/p>\n

There’s quite a time-lag on most of the data, sadly – sometimes it’s from 2011 – so it’s best for background rather than new information.<\/p>\n

2. Situation reports (SitReps)<\/h2>\n

If you want really up to date information it doesn’t get much better than the SitReps<\/strong> published by NHS England<\/strong>, which provide information on A&E admissions and waiting times for the last week<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The BBC<\/strong> recently used the data as the basis for a live A&E tracker<\/a>. As you can see, the key approach is to put the figures into context, both nationally and historically:<\/p>\n

\"NHS<\/a><\/p>\n

3. Hospital Episode Statistics (HSCIC)<\/h2>\n

The HES section<\/a> of the HSCIC site contains all sorts of information about how patients are admitted to hospitals and what happens to them, including maternity services.<\/p>\n

The navigation on the site is not particularly easy to follow – for example many of the most useful links are on the right hand side of the page.<\/p>\n

Also, a lot of the data is only at aggregate level – try adding the phrase “Provider level analysis”<\/strong>\u00a0or “by provider”<\/strong>\u00a0in the search box to get more detail by hospital or trust. It’s not timely but it is more timely than the Indicator Portal – in March 2014 you can get data up to December 2013.<\/p>\n

Helpfully, the site does provide a publications calendar<\/a>, so you can plan ahead for future releases.<\/p>\n

4. Gov.uk and Data.gov.uk publications<\/h2>\n

Not all data about health is published by NHS England or the HSCIC. The central Gov.uk website’s Publications section<\/a> allows you to subscribe to email updates or RSS alerts when new information is published that covers the topic ‘National Health Service’, or comes from the Department of Health – or you can simply choose those containing a keyword such as ‘health’.<\/p>\n

You can also choose to get updates on all publications, including research and consultations, or just statistics.<\/p>\n

\"gov<\/a><\/p>\n

A similar central repository is the Data.gov.uk<\/strong> website, which allows you to search by keyword<\/a>,\u00a0select the ‘Health’ theme<\/a>, or browse by publisher (department or body). There’s a lot of overlap here, but you may find data on one which isn’t on the other.<\/p>\n

\"health<\/a><\/p>\n

5. TheyWorkForYou and WhatDoTheyKnow<\/h2>\n

There’s plenty of data released in responses to FOI requests<\/strong>. Getting hold of those isn’t easy, however, as there are hundreds of bodies which potentially could publish responses.<\/p>\n

Some are published on the Gov.uk publications site listed above, but it’s also worth subscribing to an email or RSS alert from the FOI request site WhatDoTheyKnow<\/strong>. You might try a broad search like ‘health’<\/a>, or a type of organisation, like ‘CCG’<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Another useful source is Parliamentary written answers<\/strong>: these are responses to questions from MPs and Peers and often include tables of data. You can use the sister site TheyWorkForYou<\/strong> to search written answers specifically (use the drop-down menu for Section<\/em>) and\/or specify that you’re only interested in answers from the Department of Health. Here’s an example search for ‘health’<\/a>.<\/p>\n

6. Regulators and auditors<\/h2>\n

The Care Quality Commission<\/strong> (CQC) inspects a range of health services, from hospitals and GP surgeries to dentists and care homes.<\/p>\n

It publishes some (not very useful) data that basically lists details on the “places that provide care”<\/a>, including the date last inspected. But its most useful data – results from almost 100,000 inspections<\/a>, comes from browsing its directory and clicking on individual links.<\/p>\n

Also worth looking at is the National Audit Office<\/strong>, which has a section of reports on health and social care<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales<\/h2>\n

Many of the links above relate to data for England, but the same data is normally available at similar sites in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland – these include:<\/p>\n