Health and care statistics

The United Kingdom Health Statistics Steering Group (UKHSSG), formerly the English Health Statistics Steering Group (EHSSG), was formed in 2016, following a systematic review of health and care statistics for England by the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) in 2015. The review found that before, it was not always possible to get coherent, accessible information about health and care statistics. The change in the steering group name reflects new priorities to address UK coherence within health statistics.

Several important statistical suppliers are members of this group. There are members from:

Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) including the Office for Health Improvements and Disparities (OHID)
NHS Business Services Authority
NHS England (NHSE)
Office for National Statistics (ONS)
UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA)
Welsh Government
Public Health Scotland
Department of Health (Northern Ireland)

In March 2018 the OSR gave the UKHSSG the responsibility to improve the coherence and accessibility of health and social care statistics. It was agreed that the group would work hard to improve health and care statistics.

We have a responsibility to improve coherence and accessibility of health and care statistics in England and across the devolved nations. Our objectives are to:

remove duplication of statistical releases
harmonise methodology and definitions
increase user engagement
align publication dates
improve accessibility of statistics

We updated our work plan for 2022 to 2027 following the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. This work plan will be regularly updated to with information about new challenges and developments.

We have also set up several UK Health Statistics theme groups. The groups cover all areas of the health and care statistics system. They are chaired by a lead statistical producer organisation with other official statistics producers as members. The theme groups are also expanding to include membership from across the four nations where there is enough resource to do so. The UKHSSG is concentrating on improving the coherence of statistics across the UK coherence as a priority.

Health and care statistics provide important information about:

trends in the population
patterns of medical conditions and the need for healthcare
the activity and effectiveness of health services – this includes information about the numbers of patients treated

By publishing this information, we can help people to:

understand the workloads of different services
study trends in demand and supply
compare the quality of health care services and how well they are working in different areas and organisations

Health and care statistics are widely used to:

plan services at national and local levels
develop government policy on major topics, such as pensions
allocate local government and NHS funding according to need
measure changes over time
measure differences between geographical areas and social groups

These data sources contribute to scientific knowledge about population health. This is known as epidemiology. The data sources also contribute to scientific knowledge about wellbeing and provide evidence for many types of medical research.

We have developed this interactive tool to give links to all important official health and care statistics in a single central place. It will help all users find relevant statistics and information on specific health topics and cross-cutting themes. It also hosts the COVID-19 Question Bank.

The COVID-19 Question Bank provides a list of questions from many Office for National Statistics (ONS) surveys related to COVID-19. These questions should be used in other surveys to support harmonisation and questionnaire development. The Question Bank also gives users an understanding of what data ONS have about the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic