1. RSS Conference, 6 Sept 2016 One structure – Two Brands
Official Health Statistics
– More from Less?
Scott Heald
Associate Director/
Head of Profession for Statistics

2. Health Statistics in Scotland
Majority of health statistics in Scotland produced by ISD Scotland (
ISD is part of Public Health & Intelligence (PHI) within NHS National Services Scotland (NSS)
NSS is a “special health board” which provides specialist services to the NHS in Scotland; information and intelligence is one of the specialist services
Production of official statistics is an important part of our remit, recognised in the 2008 Official Statistics (Scotland) order
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3. Huge variety of topic areas
What does ISD do?
Population Health:
Cancer
Health Disease
Stroke
Child Health
Health Improvement:
Scottish Public Health Observatory
Drugs & Alcohol
Mental Health
Quality Improvement:
Quality Indicators
Hospital Mortality
Complaints
Resources
Workforce Statistics
NHS Costs
Prescribing
Prescribing & remuneration
Service Access
Waiting Times
GP Out of Hours
Pathways
Hospital Care
Primary (GP) Care
Dental
Integration
Social Care
Intermediate Care
Community Care
Audits
Wide range of clinical audits

4. What does ISD do? Variety of roles beyond official statistics
Placements in NHS Boards
e.g. NHS Lothian
Placements in Local Authorities
e.g. North Lanarkshire
Placements with Scottish Government
e.g. within Policy Directorates
Surveys
e.g. Substance misuse prevalence
Clinical Trials
Bespoke projects and analyses for a range of customers
Record Linkage Service
Joint working with Academia
e.g. Farr Institute
Support to Health Protection Services

5. How are we funded? Mixture of:
“baseline” funding from Scottish Government
Additional funding from other sources, e.g. Scottish Government, NHS Boards, Local Authorities, Research for specific projects
Currently asked to identify 5% cash-releasing efficiencies savings each year on our “baseline” funding
Split of “baseline” to additional funding is now 49% to 51%, i.e. our funding model has shifted to > income
Our staffing levels have increased due to increased demand for our services (e.g. increase in local support)
Majority of our official statistics produced through baseline funding
Largely staffing costs for our data management and statistical functions

6. Being addressed through our Smart Publishing Programme
Listening to our users
Highly valued
Important to a range of stakeholders to make informed decisions.
Significant media interest
Substantial Health & Financial Impact potential
Not easy to use.
Processes inefficient
Timeliness of release is criticised
Out of touch/old technology
Not focused on helping customers use for action
Inability to meet new demand
Being addressed through our Smart Publishing Programme

7. Information to Support Improved Outcomes
Translation
Intelligence
Data
Translation
Intelligence
Data
Local Support linked to National resource
Integrated Analysis
Predictive Modelling
Shift in emphasis over time
Secure access to high quality data/standard reports

8. How are we managing this?
Service Level Agreement in place with Scottish Government to agree priorities for each year; includes plans for statistical publications, opportunities for additional funding
Consult with users prior to any changes to publications
No statistical series have stopped
Processes more efficient
Moving away from traditional PDF report with Excel tables
Looking to combine series where we can (e.g. one waiting time release rather than six)
Moving to open data and “data releases”, supported by self-service dashboards and visualisations (with supporting videos)
Allows more timely release of data
Reduces information requests, including FoIs, releasing analyst capacity to do other value-added work
Supported by annual in-depth topic-specific report
Prescribing statistics leading the way
Followed by Waiting Times, Hospital Activity, Workforce, Cancer

9. Less of…….
Less about putting things onto our website in a standard format (there is a place for this)

10. More of……. KEY MESSAGES TOPIC SUMMARIES METADATA ANALYTICS

11. The wider Scottish Statistics landscape
New Scottish Official Statistics Strategy being launched in October 2016
Closer collaboration between the three main official statistics producers – ISD, Scottish Government and National Records of Scotland
Already looking at ways we can work more closely together to achieve efficiencies/benefits through closer working:
IT infrastructure
Software (“once for Scotland”, rather than 3 times for Scotland)
Workforce development – shared staff development
More joined-up approach to recruitment and sharing of scarce analytical resource
Example of this working in action is the new Scottish Open Data Platform, comprising statistics from all organisations

12. Thank You
Any questions?