Stuff that occurs to me

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Contact: @JoBrodie Email: jo DOT brodie AT gmail DOT com

Science in London: The 2018/19 scientific society talks in London blog post

Friday 31 October 2014

UK Gov Statistics page has an 'upcoming' tab, ie a publications schedule

by @JoBrodie, brodiesnotes.blogspot.com



tl;dr https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics (look for the announcement's tab, which cleverly has its own bookmarkable URL https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/announcements - RSS / email alerts may also appear).



At some point every year various data / statistics collectors release the previous year's aggregated stats such as mortality rates (what everyone died of), QOF* figures, prescription costs (how much money the NHS has spent on X,Y and Z), various in-patient audits and they're generally predictable. Other reports are released quarterly, some on a more ad hoc basis, some are a complete surprise.

My favourite predictable stats info page is the Scottish Diabetes Survey http://www.diabetesinscotland.org.uk/Publications.aspx?catId=3

The HSCIC (Health & Social Care Information Centre) has a publication schedule (I'm interested in the ones to do with diabetes prescriptions and the national diabetes audits) and you can see on this page http://www.hscic.gov.uk/pubs/calendar what documents are due to be published, and when.

I asked the Gov.uk people if they might have such a thing for their Government publications page (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications) and it turns out they've recently launched something like this for their Statistics (though not other kinds of publications). Fair enough, it's a nice start. 

Published https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics
Yet to be published https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/announcements

Both are actually the same page - the 'yet to be published' is just the 'Upcoming' tab.

They also said that they're planning to have RSS feeds & email subscriptions (keyword search results pinged automatically to you via alerts) which I'm very pleased about, and had previously asked for.

I thought others might like to know :)

*Quality and Outcomes Framework which has a particular purpose (paying GP surgeries according to the numbers of patients they have who have had certain tests or interventions done, eg advice about stopping smoking, measurement of cholesterol, an HbA1c test for people with diabetes) and which by happy coincidence also tells you many people (over 17) have diabetes (other conditions are available but I work in diabetes charities so that's what I'm after).

Latest QOF figures were published on 28 October http://www.hscic.gov.uk/catalogue/PUB15751 and they are published reliably in October every year http://www.hscic.gov.uk/qof

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