HSCIC Information to support public health specialists - Philippa Lynch

The Health & Social Care Information Centre provide a range of information resources to support public health specialists.

A dedicated page for public health provides access to a range of statistical publications, survey data collections and data sets, systems, services and tools. By providing the national picture, HSCIC help you to assess the health needs of your area and compare with similar organisations. HSCIC also offers a number of data services for public health, including the following:

Primary care mortality database (http://www.hscic.gov.uk/pcmdatabase)

The Primary Care Mortality Database (PCMD) holds mortality data as provided at the time of registration of the death along with additional GP details, geographical indexing and coroner details where applicable. This data is for use by Public Health analysts in Local Authorities and analysts in NHS Organisations who require deaths data for statistical purposes. You will be required to complete a Data Access Agreement for the organisation, a short declaration list and a Short Declaration of Use for each person accessing the data.

Data Linkage and Extract Service (http://www.hscic.gov.uk/dles)

The Health and Social Care Information Centre handles three different types of patient-level data:

1. De-identified data for publication - data that can be publicly disclosed as it has been anonymised and there is a low risk of individuals being identified.
2. De-identified data for limited disclosure or access - data that has been through a process of pseudonymisation, however there remains a risk of individuals being identified.
3. Personal confidential data - data in which individuals are identified, or there is a high risk of individuals being identified.

Aggregate data is made available via the HSCIC's statistical publications and reports. The data underpinning them is type 1 (as above) and, where possible, this is released as Open Data. You can browse, search and filter these freely available documents and files using the HSCIC catalogue.

The Data Linkage and Extract Service offers a range of products which enable customers to access type 2 and 3 data (as above). Extracts can be provided 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 the HSCIC's robust Information Governance standards to protect and control how data is managed and, where applicable, an appropriate legal basis is in place.

Data Service for Commissioners (http://www.hscic.gov.uk/dataserviceforcommissioners)

The Data Services for Commissioners is a new service which processes data to support local commissioning whilst protecting patient confidentiality. The service, delivered by staff seconded into the HSCIC from Commissioning Support Units (CSUs), will receive and process personal confidential data (PCD) on behalf of Commissioning Support Units (CSUs) and Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs). This will reduce or remove the need for these organisations to handle PCD and allow them to deliver focus on their core commissioning functions.