Radical
Statistics
Response to A First Class Service - a consultation document
Radical Statistics Health Group
In general, we see many positive developments in NHS statistics, arising from the more open approach to government. Thus we are pleased to see that the documents proposing clinical effectiveness indicators give a full account of the methods used to construct them and that these include age adjustment and attaching confidence intervals to rates.
On the other hand, we are concerned at the way single indicators are used as proxy measures for a much wider range of population characteristics and NHS activities and at the use of 'league tables' to rank them. Related to this is the questionable value of collapsing indicators into 'composites'. As similar processes are being abandoned for motions to political conferences they should also be dropped in the compilation of statistics.
A major concern is the need for investment to improve the quality and relevance of statistics and the need to relate data about care provided to the socio-economic circumstances of the individual people receiving it, not simply to the areas in which they live.
