Health and care statistics

The provision of health services is devolved across the four nations of the UK. As a result, the way we measure NHS activity and performance in each nation differs, reflecting the different policy priorities and circumstances of each nation. While there are similarities in the types of data collected, there are also important differences in coverage and definitions, meaning that the headline statistics are often not directly comparable. This can be because of the different performance standards in place or other underlying methodological differences.

The UKHSSG, theme groups and relevant organisations have worked with the ONS to assess the coherence and comparability of statistics across a range of health topics. In some cases, it has been established that statistics should not be compared directly between nations, and in other cases broad comparisons are appropriate. This work has led to the following publications addressing comparability of the statistics produced by the UK nations:

• Summary of ambulance response time data in the UK
• Accident and emergency wait times across the UK
• The healthcare workforce across the UK
• Measuring NHS experience and satisfaction across the UK
• NHS planned care waiting times across the UK
• Waiting times for cancer treatment across the UK

We have developed:

• a UK adult social care statistics interactive tool
• a UK health and care statistics interactive tool

These tools help users explore official published health and care statistics across the four UK nations in a single central place.

The ONS produces a monthly health and social care newsletter which brings together official statistics and insight from across the GSS. To subscribe and get future updates about health and care please join the mailing list.

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.