The Information Centre for health and social care

1
The Information Centre for health and social care

• Information at the heart of decision making
• 9 June 2006

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The New CentreHistory Background

• A Special Health Authority since
• 1st April 2005
• That has taken on
• information-management functions from former NHS
  Information Authority
• statistical functions from DH, including social
  care
• Independent Board
• Approx 350 posts
• Leeds based

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• Data are the most important and under-used assets
  in the health and social care system
• The transformation of data into information that
  is valued and used is fundamental to delivering
  better health and better services

4
Information Centre Strategy

• Our visionInformation at the heart of decision
  making throughout Health and Social Care based
  on
• authoritative comparative data
• an independent perspective

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Our five strategic imperatives
Provide effective access to information
Deliver information of integrity
Support policy development and research
Promote an information culture
Be a dynamic, customer-focussed organisation
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Pro-active information broker

• Understanding and anticipating the nature of
  decisions across
• all levels of the health and social care system
• Translating these into comparative information
  needs
• Mapping current availability and quality of
  information
• Working in partnership with others to reduce
  duplication and fill the gaps
• Ensuring that data are properly managed,
  supported, shared and made more accessible in a
  timely way
• Setting and promoting standards in data
  collection and use
• Strengthening capacity for informed decision
  making
• especially through the use of comparative
  information and associated products

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The key principles of good information

• Valued accepted as having authority and value.
  People understand it and are prepared to exchange
  it to achieve mutual benefits
• Straightforward to collect a natural and
  expected by-product of providing and using health
  and social care
• Meaningful always have relevance to its users,
  such that it improves and adapts to the way it is
  used to fulfil different purposes at different
  times
• Easy to access be available to people who need
  it when they need it, within clear and simple
  rules of access
• Used acquires value when it is used in the
  process of making decisions and achieving
  positive results

8

• Collectively, we need to
• transform the flows of information,
• transform attitudes towards information
• and the ways people use it
• To improve quality, fairness and efficiency in
• health and social care

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Challenges

• Overlapping data collections are constructed to
  fulfil different purposes
• Data collected to fulfil one purpose fails to
  meet another purpose
• Data are not standardised or collated at national
  level to enable comparisons to be made
• Data are not organised for ease of use
• People find it hard to access data and
  information
• Fear of how data will be used stops it being
  shared or even collected
• Perfect data fails to provide useful
  information

10

• The pursuit of excellence can sometimes get in
  the way of the good enough. If the information
  isnt there, the decisions still get made
  anyway
• Professor Bernard Crump, Chief Executive, NHS
  Institute for Innovation and Improvement

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The SUS Contribution to the Solution

• SUS is aiming to address many of these issues
• Data will be standardised and quality should be
  improved
• Data collected once will be used many times
• Collating data at a national level to enable
  comparisons
• Access to information will be simple but
  controlled
• On-line access and improved data standards will
  make information available earlier

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The Partnership WithConnecting for Health

• CfH is delivering and managing
• Infrastructure
• Data standards (e.g. OPCS)
• The tools to access the data
• The Information Centre is contributing
• Analysis of requirements
• Benefits assurance
• Data quality initiatives
• Communication with users

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How the SUS Fits With The IC

• Existing activities related to SUS goals include
• Data Collections Information Catalogue is
  focussed on streamlining collection
• National comparisons and analyses of multiple
  datasets are provided to the DH to support policy
  development
• The HRG classification is being further developed
• and will continue to be the currency of PbR
• Working in partnership across Health and
• Social Care as shown by the Concordat

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• The way forward is to develop a shared picture
  of the diverse information needs across the
  system, and to create a strong platform that
  allows an information market to develop to meet
  those demands.
• Matthew Swindells,
• Policy Adviser to the Secretary of State