1. Accessing health information in the UK
David Redfern
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2. Introduction
This presentation supports the article on ‘Accessibility to health services: assessing population patterns’ in Geography Review Volume 30, Number 4. An excellent starting point for this area of study for the UK is the Public Health England (PHE) website at This is a data source for many aspects of public health in the UK, termed public health observatories. [Note that this website will be moving to a ‘gov.uk’ site at some point in the future (not stated when) though you will be redirected when the move takes place.]
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3. What information can be accessed? (1)
The Home page of the website provides a wealth of information that will support work on national health trends, and work on local places under the Changing places topic.
The following three areas are perhaps the most relevant to geographers and link to the themes of the article in Geography Review:
National catchment populations
National general practice profiles
Local Authority Health profiles.
In each case click on the heading in the appropriate box on the Home page, as shown on the next slide.
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4. What information can be accessed? (2)
National catchment populations
National general practice profiles
Local Authority Health profiles.
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5. National catchment populations (1)
The term ‘catchment area’ is often used to give an understanding of the geographical and demographic boundary from which a facility (for example a school, a supermarket, a hospital or a doctor’s surgery) draws its customers or users. The ‘catchment population’ is not just a count of the total number of people that are resident within the catchment area, but is an estimate of the population that are actually using the facility or have the potential to use it. In this context PHE has calculated catchment populations as those people that have been admitted to a hospital, in other words actual users of its acute services. Catchment populations for all hospitals in the UK have been calculated and plotted for all admissions, both elective and emergency in A national catchment map for England can be downloaded and studied.
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6. National catchment populations (2)
Catchment populations are extremely useful for medical service planning and show the potential population who may access health services. They give a health provider a useful gauge of, for example, how many staff are required and other capacities that it may need to meet the demand for services (e.g. operating theatres, number of consultants for particular specialities). Evidence has also indicated that for some clinical areas there is a link between volume of activity and clinical outcomes. Therefore it is important to ensure that the catchment population is of a sufficient size to ensure that clinical teams can keep their expertise and skills up to date due to receiving ample patients within that speciality. This issue is currently ‘live’ concerning child heart operations in the UK where PHE is seeking to reduce the number of specialist units in order to concentrate expertise.
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7. National general practice profiles (1)
These profiles are designed to support GPs, clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) and local authorities (LAs) to ensure that they are providing and commissioning effective and appropriate healthcare services for their local populations.
In addition to viewing individual practice profiles, you can view summary profiles for CCGs. Each practice can be compared with the CCG and England, and also with the deprivation decile for the area where the practice is located.
Click on ‘Practice Summary’:
Enter your CCG
Enter your own GP practice
Study the information provided.
See next slide for an example.
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8. National general practice profiles (2)
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9. National general practice profiles (3)
Using a variety of graphical displays such as spine charts and population pyramids, this tool presents a range of practice-level indicators drawn from the latest available data, including:
Local demography
Cancer services
Child health
Antibiotic prescribing
Patient satisfaction
The profiles do not provide an exhaustive list of primary care indicators, but they do allow a consistent approach to comparing and benchmarking across England.
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10. Local Authority health profiles (1)
Local Authority health profiles are part of a programme to improve availability and accessibility for health and health-related information in England. The profiles give a snapshot overview of health for each local authority in England. Health Profiles are produced annually. Designed to help local government and health services make decisions and plans to improve local people's health and reduce health inequalities, the profiles present a set of health indicators that show how the area compares to the national average. The indicators are carefully selected each year to reflect important public health topics.
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11. Local Authority health profiles (2)
To access your area’s health profile, you now have two routes: 1. Click on the Health profiles title (in a green box) on the webpage: Click on ‘Find profiles’ on the left-hand side Enter your postcode; click on ‘Find health profiles’ Download the most appropriate profile offered — usually the first one. 2. Alternatively, you can now use this link: Enter your postcode Enter your region Click ‘Start’. Download the document for your area. See next slide.
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12. Local Authority health profiles (3)
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13. Local Authority health profiles (4)
What information is provided?
A summary of general health in your area, including life expectancy, child health, adult health and a statement on local health priorities
Detail on the level of deprivation and inequalities (life expectancy, early deaths, ethnicity) in your area compared to the national average
A spine chart of a wide range of health and socioeconomic indicators and how they compare to the average for England.
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14. This resource is part of Geography Review, a magazine written for A-level students by subject experts. To subscribe to the full magazine go to:  
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