1. Official health statistics – more from less?
RSS conference
Official health statistics – more from less?
John Morris
Head of health, social care and population statistics 1

2. Statistical landscape in Wales
Several producers of official statistics on health and social care in Wales:
Welsh Government
NHS performance, primary care, social care, NHS resources, community
Office for National Statistics
Vital statistics, life expectancy, mortality
Public Health Wales
Child measurement programme, CARIS
NHS Wales Informatics Service
Monthly a&e, hospital admissions
Welsh Cancer Intelligence and Surveillance Unit
Cancer statistics

3. Role of Welsh Government statisticians

4. Welsh Government – changes in OS
Consulted in 2014 to better meet user demand and make production more efficient:
Proposed to move from monthly statistical publications for NHS performance release and move to monthly data releases with quarterly analyses – adding value
Cease duplicating official statistics produced elsewhere – eg births/deaths
Reduce frequency of some statistics
Publishing ad-hoc requests

5. Meeting user needs
User event in June 2015 with UK Statistics Authority, PHW and NWIS:
Most users felt needs were being met, but some notable gaps – eg GPs, patient outcomes, community services
Some confusion over where to find information and who did what. Users weren't concerned over who did what, as long as they could find it

6. Moving to a new approach for surveys
No National Survey results this year
Developing new Survey brings together existing:
National Survey
Welsh Health Survey
Active Adults Survey
Arts in Wales Survey
Welsh Outdoor Recreation Survey
Fieldwork started March 2016; first results June 2017

7. Changing demands Interest in health statistics is changing..
Move away from traditional statistical releases to making more data available, sooner – real time information?
Users value commentary, but not at the expense of timeliness or data provision

8. Adapting to user needs Moving to meet those changing needs...
StatsWales – now open data
NHS performance releases, still monthly, but in depth analyses each quarter
Improved use of social media and visualizations
Better links between the official statistics producers in Wales
Looking to fill those gaps, where possible and efficient to do so

10. Wider context and strategies
Informed health and care strategy - A digital health and social care strategy for Wales
‘The public also need to have better access to data and information about how the system is performing to gain assurance about standards and the quality of the care being delivered, so they can make informed decisions about accessing services. Wales has made progress in adding value to the data currently held in local operational systems with, for example, NWIS, the Public Health Observatory and the secure anonymised information linkage (SAIL) databank working together to publish mortality, control of infection and other data routinely to provide transparency for the public. More needs to be done to realise the combined potential of these services to create Wales-wide service intelligence capacity and capability.
A greater collaborative approach across health and social care is required to make best use
of limited resources, pooling our capacity and capability in data analysis, building a common platform and using common intelligence tools with shared learning.’

11. Cwestiynau? Questions? ystadegau.iechyd@cymru.gsi.gov.uk