HSCIC Lifestyles data findings - Philippa Lynch

The Health and Social Care Information Centre Lifestyles Team recently carried out a user consultation on the four reports from the Statistics On … series which covers Obesity, Smoking, Alcohol and Drugs. The reports contain a mixture of new analysis from HES data as well as summarising information from other sources and including it in one report.

Feedback was requested from users of these reports to make them more user-friendly and accessible, whilst producing them in the most cost-effective way.

The consultation review period closed on 8th January.  The  Lifestyles Compendia Consultation Findings [341kb] (Opens in a new window) are now available.

A summary of the findings and the HSCIC action plan is copied below:

Summary

• Around two-thirds of respondents wanted the compendia reports to continue to be published on an annual basis.
• The majority wanted the reports to be produced in PowerPoint (published in pdf format), and should contain new analysis plus headline results from other sources with infographics. The current excel tables for HES admissions, deaths and prescriptions should continue to be published in the same way.
• There was support for consistency between the HES admissions published in the compendia reports and those published by PHE in the Local Tobacco and Alcohol profiles but concern that the detailed breakdowns currently published in the compendia reports was not lost.
• We should continue to include affordability statistics for smoking and alcohol.
• If the reports were stopped some respondents said they would need to put their own resources into recreating something similar. Others said they would take longer to fulfil their duties as the information would not be as readily available as time would be needed to pull it together from the various sources.

Action Plan

• All four compendia reports will be published during 2016/17 in the new PowerPoint format showing headline results with infographics. New analyses which have not been previously published will be included as Excel attachments with the aim that no new information is lost to the public domain.
• During 2016/17 the HSCIC will work with PHE to reduce duplication of work and to aim to make analyses of Hospital Admissions more consistent.
• During 2016/17 the HSCIC will carry out a wider consultation on its publications which will determine the format and frequency of these compendia reports from 2017/18 onwards.
• Suggestions for adding new information to the reports will be considered on a case-by-case basis as each compendia report is produced. However, suggestions which involve additional resources for the HSCIC are unlikely to be included.