Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Lies Damned Lies and Health Service Statistics - Finally its official

Was it serendipity?

An hour after posting my reflections on "how many times can you die?" I spotted this:

Report slams Department of Health statistics

The Department of Health's statistical releases have come under stinging criticism following a new report from the Statistics Commission, the official watchdog that will be disbanded at the end of this month.

In an analysis of government releases, the quarterly NHS inpatient and outpatient waiting times statistics failed against all six criteria, namely clarity, accuracy, objectivity, professionalism, use of simple language and ease of use.
18 March 2008

Here is a link to the report itself.
http://www.statscom.org.uk/uploads/files/reports/Releasing%20Official%20Statistics%20final.pdf

To see the evidence go to page 47 of the PDF file ( that's Page 41 of the report) and you will see a traffic light style assessment. It's easy to spot the Dept of Health quarterly statistics line - its the only one where all 6 indicators are red.

It seems a pity that the supposedly independent official watchdog had to wait until it had a couple of weeks of existence left before issuing such a damning indictment - I suppose execution really does concentrate the mind!

No comments: