Previously, NHS Digital released the General Ophthalmic Services (GOS) Official Statistics publication. Due to data availability and quality issues, NHS Digital decided to cease this publication after the 2019/20 release. Following this NHS England have asked the NHSBSA to investigate onboarding this publication using a new, different, data source that the NHSBSA receive as part of Provider Assurance activities.
Due to data quality concerns it has been decided to publish this as an Open Data release rather than as an Official Statistic.
Intended outcome
The NHSBSA will publish a monthly data set relating to the provision of Ophthalmic services to NHS patients. This will replace the NHS Digital publication and will provide much needed insight into this area of healthcare. Over time the data set will continue to mature and as measures are implemented to improve the quality of the data.
How will it work?
Our Ophthalmic Information Services and Data Warehouse teams are collaborating to automate the flow of data from the provider into our secure environments. Work is also ongoing to identify data that was available from the previous provider (for NHS Digital releases) that is no longer available, and what new information is included that could open up areas of analysis. A scheme of work is also underway to improve the overall quality of this source data.
This data set will remain relatively fluid, with new fields being included after data quality milestones have been achieved, allowing improved analysis and extra insights to be gained. The NHSBSA will also release a roadmap for this quality improvements, with the view of producing a new Official Statistic publication to accompany the Open Data release when a certain level of quality assurance is achieved, with scope to have the statistics re-designated as a National Statistic.
Summary
Previously, NHS Digital released the General Ophthalmic Services (GOS) Official Statistics publication. Due to data availability and quality issues, NHS Digital decided to cease this publication after the 2019/20 release. Following this NHS England have asked the NHSBSA to investigate onboarding this publication using a new, different, data source that the NHSBSA receive as part of Provider Assurance activities.
Due to data quality concerns it has been decided to publish this as an Open Data release rather than as an Official Statistic.
Intended outcome
The NHSBSA will publish a monthly data set relating to the provision of Ophthalmic services to NHS patients. This will replace the NHS Digital publication and will provide much needed insight into this area of healthcare. Over time the data set will continue to mature and as measures are implemented to improve the quality of the data.
How will it work?
Our Ophthalmic Information Services and Data Warehouse teams are collaborating to automate the flow of data from the provider into our secure environments. Work is also ongoing to identify data that was available from the previous provider (for NHS Digital releases) that is no longer available, and what new information is included that could open up areas of analysis. A scheme of work is also underway to improve the overall quality of this source data.
This data set will remain relatively fluid, with new fields being included after data quality milestones have been achieved, allowing improved analysis and extra insights to be gained. The NHSBSA will also release a roadmap for this quality improvements, with the view of producing a new Official Statistic publication to accompany the Open Data release when a certain level of quality assurance is achieved, with scope to have the statistics re-designated as a National Statistic.