Consultation on the Health Survey for England

The Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC) has launched a public consultation to seek feedback from users of the Health Survey for England (HSE) on the proposed changes to the smoking module.

The HSE is a series of annual surveys about the health of people living in England. It is a major study in the ESDS (recently refunded as UKDS) catalogue, sponsored by the Department of Health to provide better and more reliable information about various aspects of people's health and to monitor selected health targets.

The modules and questions within the HSE are reviewed on a regular basis to ensure they are of most benefit to users. As part of this process, the smoking module was reviewed in 2012, with a view to making changes for the HSE 2013.

The consultation will run for 6 weeks and close on Wednesday 3 October 2012.

Following the consultation period, all comments received by the HSCIC will be considered and decisions will be made on the content of the Smoking Module for HSE 2013 onwards.

·         Full details of the consultation

Launch of new Health Statistics Users' Group website

The Health Statistics User Group (HSUG) has launched a new website: http://www.hsug.org.uk/.

Resources available on the website include presentations from the 20th Anniversary conference which can be found under 'HSUG material'.

The content on the site is accessible to all, but registration is reqiured in order to take active part in discussions, post comments and initiate discussion threads. Registering will enable you to receive regular updates about new material on the site.

The new site has been developed in partnership with the Royal Statistical Society in its development of StatsUserNet  <http://www.statsusernet.org.uk/> as a way of improving user participation in official statistics. Being part of StatsUserNet allows you to look at, and become involved in, discussions not only on health statistics but also related statistical areas such as Census and Well-being.

The site also gives access to all the material that were available on the old site.

NHS Lifestyle Surveys Consultation

The NHS Information Centre (IC) publishes the following Lifestyles survey publications: 

• Health Survey for England – Health, Lifestyles and Social Care
• Smoking, Drinking and Drug Use Among Young People in England
• Infant Feeding Survey

The findings are used to provide an insight into the health and behaviour of people in England. The longevity of the surveys also enables changing trends to be studied over time. They can be used to help decision makers improve policies and services and ultimately improve the health of population in this country.

The NHS IC has launched a public consultation on the Lifestyles surveys with the following aims:

• to engage with the users of the surveys to develop a more complete understanding of the use made of this data
• to ensure the surveys are relevant and meaningful to the needs of users
• to seek the views of users on the content and format of the publications

This consultation will run for 12 weeks from Friday 30 December 2011 to Friday 23 March 2012. Please ensure you submit any comments prior to the closing date so they can be considered.

Further details, along with the full consultation document are available at

www.ic.nhs.uk/work-with-us/consultations/lifestyles-surveys-consultation-review

If you would like to know more about the consultation or if you have any queries, please contact the Lifestyles Statistics Section Head: 

Paul Eastwood

Email: paul.eastwood@ic.nhs.uk

Telephone: 0113 254 2509

Change to General Lifestyle Survey - No more health questions

From the Royal Statistical Society website. For more information and links see http://www.rssenews.org.uk/articles/20110929_3

Health Survey for England statistics will be inferior to General Lifestyle Survey says the UK Statistics Authority


The decision by the Health and Social Care Information Centre to cease its contribution towards the costs of the Office of National Statistics' (ONS) General Lifestyle Survey (GLF) and use the Health Survey for England as an alternative survey vehicle "will not produce statistics consistent with those previously available, or to the same quality", the UK Statistics Authority has told Health Secretary Andrew Lansley.

In order to reduce expenditure by £300,000, the ONS will remove the questions on health and health determinants from the GLF from October 2011. Consequently, several long standing National Statistics series on smoking, drinking and the use of health services will end.

In its letter of acknowledgement to the Health Secretary (linked from RSS website), the Statistics Authority says it "will assess whatever new statistical series are created" in the place of these series in order to ensure that the standards of the Code of Practice for Official Statistics are met.

The letter explains the Authority's view "that the best way of collecting the statistics is the way in which they have until now been collected, via the GLF. Users of the existing GLF data have previously highlighted the importance of this source, citing its large sample size, the wide variety of variables it offers for explanatory analysis, and the ability to compare data across Great Britain. Although the Health Survey for England includes many of the health related questions from the GLF, it has a substantially smaller sample size, does not allow country level comparisons and does not include such a wide variety of variables for explanatory analysis."