Dear Ed,
Accident and Emergency (A&E) Activity Statistics in Scotland: Confirmation of Accredited Official Statistics status
Thank you to you and your team for conducting an assessment of Public Health Scotland’s (PHS) weekly A&E activity statistics. We are delighted that OSR’s independent review has concluded that they should have the status of accredited official statistics.
A&E departments across Scotland provide people with access to urgent and, in some cases, life-saving, treatment. Their high value to the public is reflected in the importance that PHS and its partners across NHS Scotland attach to collecting and reporting these statistics, and their monthly counterparts, to the highest standards. This assessment outcome means that the many different users of these statistics across Scotland and beyond can be assured that their trustworthiness, quality and value meet the expectations and requirements set out in the Code of Practice for Statistics.
I would also like to thank my team for their proactive approach to making improvements to the statistics throughout the assessment process. In response to the specific requirements asked of us in July, we have now:
- completed user engagement including a targeted consultation with A&E statistics users and developed a broader consultation survey for all PHS statistics users that will be launched this Autumn;
- added new information explaining how to use these statistics to compare results with services in other parts of the UK;
- updated the monthly chart to include a target line to help users interpret the data and provided more information about uncertainty in the data.
PHS will also be applying the wider learning and feedback from this assessment to our other publications. We look forward to continuing working with OSR to ensure PHS statistics serve the public good.
Yours sincerely,
Scott Heald
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