National statistics consultation on changes to outpatient waiting times and activity publications

Consultation opened on 11 October 2019. Closing date 06 December 2019.

Summary

Information and Analysis Directorate (IAD), within DoH, is consulting on proposed changes to how and what data are collected for two National Statistics Publications: Outpatient Waiting Times and Outpatient Activity. Hospital Information Branch (HIB) propose to adopt a new methodology of extracting patient level data relating to the number of patients waiting for a first consultant led outpatient appointment from the HSC Data Warehouse. HIB also propose to collect outpatient activity data at Trust level rather than for each Hospital Site within each Trust.

Documents

Consultation description

In order to improve the quality of some existing publications, the Department of Health is proposing to change how and what data are collected for the following publications: 

  1. Northern Ireland Waiting Times Statistics: Outpatient Waiting Times – Hospital Information Branch (HIB) propose to adopt a new methodology of extracting patient level data relating to the number of patients waiting for a first consultant led outpatient appointment from the HSC Data Warehouse. This would replace the quarterly aggregate returns submitted to HIB by the Health and Social Care (HSC) Trusts. 
  2. Hospital Activity Statistics: Outpatient Activity – HIB propose to collect this data at Trust level rather than for each Hospital Site within each Trust. This data is currently provided to HIB by HSC Trusts on a quarterly basis.

These publications are designated as National Statistics and are governed by the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007 and the Code of Practice for Statistics.  Within the Code, the Quality pillar has a number of principles. The principle on Sound Methods advises that producers of statistics and data should provide users with advance notice about changes to methods, explaining why the changes are being made. 

In compliance with the Code of Practice, the Department is informing users of the changes to data collection methods for these National Statistics publications. 

You are invited to provide feedback on this proposed change (using the template provided) by no later than Friday 6th December 2019. 

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