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This newsletter brings together official statistics and insights on health and social care from across the Government Statistical Service (GSS).
The newsletter has a wide audience, from experts to interested citizens, so is designed to be accessible to all.
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Health Data Science Seminar
Thursday 25 January 2024, 2pm to 3:30pm
This series of seminars presents an exciting opportunity to hear about recent developments in health data science, generate ideas, and help build the health data science community. It is hosted by the Office for National Statistics' (ONS) Data Science Campus and Health Analysis Team in partnership with Health Data Research UK (HDR UK).
This event, 'Digital footprints', will feature presentations from guest speakers:
- Dr Anya Skatova, Senior Research Fellow at the University of Bristol
- Professor Will Dixon, Professor of Digital Epidemiology, The University of Manchester
- Professor Tim Chico, Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine at the University of Sheffield
This seminar takes place on Microsoft Teams, with the access link to be sent to all registered attendees at least 24 hours before the start of the event.
If you have any questions about this seminar, please email hpm.communication@ons.gov.uk.
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January's data highlights
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Winter COVID-19 Infection Study
The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) and the ONS have published results from the Winter coronavirus (COVID-19) infection study, England and Scotland, and Winter coronavirus (COVID-19) infection study: estimates of epidemiological characteristics, England and Scotland: 2023 to 2024.
The survey, which runs from November 2023 to March 2024, provides vital insights on infection rates, symptoms and impacts on work by region, sex, and age. This will help us understand the potential winter pressures on our health services.
The latest figures show that COVID-19 infection levels are rising. Around one in 24 people in England and Scotland likely to have tested positive for coronavirus in mid-December, up from one in 50 at the start of the month. Rates are highest in London and the South-East.
There is also an official statistics release for Winter coronavirus (COVID-19) infection study: estimates of epidemiological characteristics, 21 December 2023.
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Near to real time suspected suicide surveillance system (nRTSSS) launches
Designed to act as an early warning system for changes in trends to inform suicide prevention, the Near to real time suspected suicide surveillance system monthly reporting presents rates of suspected suicides in England, broken down by age group and sex. It also gives an overview of method of suspected suicide.
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Mental health services data set
The Mental health services data set will now report performance data in the month following activity. October activity was published in December 2023, one month earlier than normal, providing more timely data for policy and commissioners.
Restrictive interventions data will continue to be reported two months after the activity period, following feedback from providers.
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Mental health of children and young people (MHCYP)
The MHCYP - wave 4 follow up to the 2017 survey was published on 21 November.
This survey series provides England’s best source of data on trends in child mental health and asked about a range of topics covering:
- mental health
- sleep
- loneliness
- activities and health behaviours
- education
- services and support
- social and economic context
- eating problems and disorders
A total of 2,370 children and young people who took part in the MHCYP 2017 survey took part in the wave 4 follow up. This allowed for comparisons to be made with 2017, 2020 (wave 1), 2021 (wave 2), and 2022 (wave 3) to monitor changes over time.
A recorded briefing is available as part of the publication.
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Health and social care statistics user consultation
The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), ONS, UKHSA and NHS England are running a joint public consultation on their health and social care statistical outputs. We’d like to remind you to please take part if you have not had a chance to do so yet. The consultation closes on Tuesday 5 March 2024.
It has been commissioned by the Health and Social Care Statistics Leadership Forum to review the current health statistical system and ensure outputs are valuable, efficient, and reflect current user need.
The consultation invites overall feedback on the health and statistical system, followed by optional, topic-based sections covering specific proposals, allowing users to submit consultation responses on topics most relevant to them. We encourage you to complete the consultation as soon as you can – your input is valuable.
You can also read a blog called 'Working together to improve health and social care statistics', written by Julie Stanborough, Deputy Director for Data & Analysis for Social Care & Health at the ONS, about the consultation.
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NHS England – The mental health services data set
The mental health services data set launched an extra submission window in the autumn for providers impacted by last year’s cyber incident to allow additional submissions for 2022 to 2023 from impacted providers only.
The additional window allowed impacted providers to submit extra data x or y or both, improve the quality of data already submitted, which they had not been able to do during the normal submission window due to the cyber incident.
Final data for 2022-23 Mental Health bulletin is now available and each of last year’s publications has been updated, which means NHS England is now able to report actual figures rather than imputed estimates.
They have also started development work on the 2022-23 annual publications and the Mental Health Act statistics will be published on 25 January 2024 and in February 2024.
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NHS England guest blog: Mental health data
In a recent blog, Gary Childs, Head of Analytical Delivbery at NHS England, discussed the steps taken to improve the quality of mental health data.
The blog covers the different strategies taken to improve data quality including support given to providers, steps taken to ensure all data is captured, and improvements to the quality of data.
The blog is available on the Office for Statistics Regulation web-page.
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Changes to weekly deaths bulletins
Since the onset of the pandemic, the ONS has produced mortality statistics at pace, responding to the new data needs. This included adding COVID-19 mortality analysis to our weekly deaths bulletin.
However, now that we have emerged from the pandemic, and with low numbers of COVID-19 deaths (lower than flu deaths), we will be making some changes to the publication.
Detailed COVID-19 deaths breakdowns, for example, by age and place of occurrence, will no longer be included in our weekly deaths release. We are also making some formatting changes to improve the user experience. This includes making the tables easier to read.
From next week the publication day of this release will change from Tuesdays to Wednesdays. This means the next weekly deaths bulletin will be on Wednesday 17 January 2024.
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Health and care statistics
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Newsletter content
If there is an article or something you would like to share, please get in touch to see how you can include your event, publication or information in this newsletter. We look forward to hearing from you.
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