Information to support

public healthspecialists

2 Copyright © 2013 Health and Social Care Information Centre

Health and lifestyles knowledgeThrough our population survey programme and other National Statistics publications, we are the leading provider of information on key lifestyles behaviours such as diet, smoking and drinking and public health data on screening. Our resources can help identify which groups might be most at risk, monitor inequalities, compare outcomes and highlight where there may be pressure points on services.

Population SurveysWe run a wide range of national surveys that provide a broad picture of local populations and cover all aspects of the population’s health including:

• Health Survey for England (HSE)

• Smoking, Drinking and Drug Use Amongst Young People

• Adult and Children’s Dental Health (separate reports)

• Infant Feeding Survey

• Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey

• Survey of Carers in Households

• What About Youth?

Our analysts and data experts have the expertise and experience of running complex health surveys. We can carry out surveys on behalf of other organisations, both local and national. We can:

• offer advice on running and commissioning surveys

• commission and manage whole surveys on your behalf

• include additional questions in existing surveys on your behalf

• include additional sample boosts in existing surveys on your behalf (e.g. for a certain geographical area or a certain demographic group).

Contact us to discuss your survey requirements enquiries@hscic.gov.uk

Information to support public health specialists

Who we are and what we doWe are the Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC). Created as an Executive Non Departmental Public Body (ENDPB) in April 2013, we employ over 2,000 staff working in 19 locations across the UK and we oversee the implementation of health and care programmes and services that have a value in excess of £1bn.

Our statutory functions and duties are set out in Part 9, Chapter 2 of the Health and Social Care Act 2012 - sections 252 to 275 - and in Schedule 18.

For more details on our statutory role go to www.hscic.gov.uk/whoweare

Our work includes:

• setting standards that protect patients’ confidential information, reduce bureaucracy and improve data quality

• delivering essential technology systems and services that support health and care organisations

• collecting, analysing and publishing national data and statistical information that helps inform decision making

• providing services that support the life-science industry and develop the UK’s health informatics skills base

Providing information to support better care

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Information to support public health specialists

National Statistics publications• Smoking: Annual publications covering general

smoking prevalence, smoking during pregnancy and use of NHS stop smoking services.

• Drinking: This yearly report is a reference point for health issues relating to alcohol use and misuse, providing information obtained from a number of sources in a user-friendly format. It covers topics such as drinking habits and behaviours among adults and school children, drinking-related ill health and mortality, affordability, alcohol related hospital admissions and alcohol-related costs.

• Diet: Annual statistics on Obesity, Physical Activity and Diet; understand how trends in physical activity and diet are contributing to NHS activity and health outcomes.

• Screening: These yearly publications give information on the national breast and cervical screening programmes. Our breast screening publication includes information on coverage, uptake of invitations, outcomes of screening and cancers detected. Our cervical screening publication includes information on coverage, women invited and tested, as well as screening samples examined in pathology laboratories and referrals to colposcopy clinics.

• Immunisation: This gives information on the coverage of national vaccination and immunisation programmes for children and persons aged 65 and over.

• National Child Measurement Programme: Publishing height, weight and Body Mass Index data from over 1 million schoolchildren, this report summarises the key findings from the Government’s National Child Measurement Programme (NCMP) for England every year.

IndicatorsThe Francis Report highlighted the role indicators and other comparative statistics play in measuring performance and outcomes and reinforced the HSCIC’s role in producing, assuring and publishing indicators.

As the national source of indicators we produce and publish the NHS Outcomes Framework, Clinical Commissioning Group Outcomes Indicator Set (CCG OIS) and Adult Social Care Outcomes Framework (ASCOF) indicators. We also provide a service for the testing and assurance of indicators, to make sure that the methods they use are robust.

Clinical Commissioning Group Outcomes Indicator Set (CCG OIS)The CCG OIS measures outcomes to help inform priority setting and drive local improvement. Our work supports NHS England and NICE by developing, testing and assuring the methods for each indicator. Much of the data used is drawn from our existing data sources from which we calculate the indicators and publish the data.

Download CCG OIS data on our Indicator Portal https://indicators.ic.nhs.uk or manipulate in our iView tool www.hscic.gov.uk/iview

Indicator Assurance ServiceOur Indicator Assurance Service supports anyone looking to develop a new national indicator by providing an open and transparent way of assuring indicator methodologies. The service gives you:

• advice on how robust a proposed methodology is

• the opportunity to check for similar indicators - saving duplication of effort

• assurance that the indicator answers the question being posed and is suitable for intended audience

• recognition for your indicator, with the opportunity to register it in a national library of assured indicators

• periodic review of the methodology

Find out more about this service www.hscic.gov.uk/services

“The NCMP shows us which ethnic groups, area of the borough and schools had the highest levels of obesity. We used it to inform where we needed to target most of our finite resources”

Anna D’Arcy, Wandsworth

Information to support public health specialists

Data ServicesPrimary Care Mortality DatabasePublic Health analysts in Local Authorities (LA) and some NHS organisations can apply to have access to the Primary Care Mortality Database (PCMD) for public health statistical purposes. Role based access enables authorised users to extract data for the deaths of patients who lived in their LA or in their Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) area. In addition they can extract deaths by GP practice for their CCG irrespective of where the patient lived and the total number of patients at each practice.

Find out more www.hscic.gov.uk/pcmdatabase

Data Linkage and Extract ServiceInformation about patients is collected in lots of different care settings. Linking this data together has the power to inform better decisions about care, improve quality and safety standards, and identify developing trends in population health.

The Data Linkage and Extract Service can provide extracts from a range of individual and linked data sets and can add significant value to individual sets of data by combining and matching them at individual record level in a secure environment.

Data can only be made available to those who meet our robust information governance standards to protect and control how data is managed.

Find out more www.hscic.gov.uk/dles

Data Service for CommissionersNHS England has commissioned the HSCIC to deliver the Data Service for Commissioners (DSC) which processes data to support commissioning organisations, whilst protecting patient confidentiality. The service is delivered by staff seconded into the HSCIC from Commissioning Support Units (CSUs). The seconded staff constitute a HSCIC DSC Regional Office but continue to work from their regional locations using HSCIC approved processing centres. Customers of the service include Public Health England and Local Authority Public Health organisations as well as CCGs and the NHS England Area Teams, with services generally being provided through the CSUs.

The service receives and processes personal confidential data (PCD), and provides data in a form that is legally acceptable for the registered purposes by the Commissioner.  This reduces or removes the need for these organisations to handle PCD and allows them to focus on their core commissioning functions.

For further information about how the Data Service for Commissioners can support your organisation: www.hscic.gov.uk/dataserviceforcommissioners

www.hscic.gov.uk 0845 300 6016 enquiries@hscic.gov.uk

We are the trusted national provider of high-quality information, data and IT systems for health and social care

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