Closure of the Health and Care statistics Systemic Review

Dear Ben,

Improving the public value of health and care statistics in England

As you are aware, OSR has undertaken a Systemic Review aimed at improving the coherence and accessibility of Health and Care Statistics. As part of this work, over the last 12 months we have been monitoring the progress of the English Health Statistics Steering Group (EHSSG).

Through this activity we have identified that the appetite for change amongst the theme leads and statisticians remains strong, and some positive progress has been made. For example, theme groups are now learning from each other about better ways to engage with external users. We were also pleased to see the leadership role ONS has taken, including your plans to encourage better collaboration across theme groups to avoid duplication of effort and thus reduce the burden on the individual groups and their members. We also welcome the work that has been done to develop an interactive website summarising the Health and Care Statistics Landscape for England.

There is still more to do, but given the progress we have seen and the increasing confidence we have that producers of health statistics across the UK are looking to collaborate and support each other better we feel that this is an appropriate time to close the formal part of our systemic review. I encourage you to continue to build on the progress seen to date including working closely with the Four Nations Group to deliver improvements. We will keep in touch with both you and the EHSSG coordinator to ensure that progress continues at a satisfactory rate and that the EHSSG continues to deliver against its action plan.

My team and I will be happy to talk with you about the work of the EHSSG at any point should you wish. I am copying this letter to John Morris, chair of the Four Nations Group.

Yours sincerely

Mary Gregory
Deputy Director for Regulation