Dear Mark
Rapid review of Scottish Ambulance Service Operational Statistics
Thank you to you and your team for undertaking a rapid review of the Scottish Ambulance Service (SAS)’s “operational statistics in unscheduled care”. This is the first statistical release from the team in SAS and it is really helpful for the team to have your observations on good practice and areas where we can develop the statistics further.
I have been really impressed by the engagement of the SAS team and their commitment to make these statistics available on a weekly basis. As you note, these statistics are of high public interest. Thank you for your positive reflections on the SAS team’s work on these statistics, and for your observations about the strong joint working between the SAS team and my statistical governance team in Public Health Scotland (PHS). This joint working will continue as we work with the SAS team to further develop these statistics, and future statistical releases from SAS.
The team are actively working through your suggested areas of development, including incorporating more metadata to aid understanding, and will review the language used in the reporting to ensure it is easy to understand for all users. As you note, the SAS team are planning to develop a dashboard to show trends in these data, and the PHS team will continue to work closely with them as this development very much aligns with the approach PHS is taking to its release of official statistics.
I will keep you and your team informed of further developments to these statistics, and of plans to develop further statistical releases from SAS.
Best wishes,
Scott Heald
Head of Profession for Statistics (Public Health Scotland and Scottish Ambulance Service)
Related links
Mark Pont to Scott Heald: Scottish Ambulance Service unscheduled care operational statistics (27 June 2022)