Welsh Government statisticians currently produce a large number of statistical outputs each year and many of these are highly valued and widely used. At the same time, the Welsh Government says it is facing increased demands, financial pressures and a need to modernise the way they work.
The Welsh Government wants to move away from paid-for software and adopt free, open-source tools. This, they say, will help them build more efficient and sustainable ways of working. They have examined the breadth of statistical outputs currently produces and propose the following changes:
- stopping or postponing some releases
- shortening content
- reducing how often some outputs are published
- changing the format of a number of outputs.
Eleven health and care statistical outputs are set to be amended, including releases on trends in NHS planned and emergency care activity, maternity and birth statistics, workforce figures, NHS expenditure programme budgets and mental health figures.
See full breakdown of the proposals on the consultation webpage
Our response
Our response made clear that whilst we recognise the need to modernise in the face of changing user habits and ongoing financial challenges, we strongly oppose any diminution in the frequency, scope or accessibility of health and NHS performance statistics.
RCPCH Wales uses a range of statistical releases provided by Welsh Government statisticians to inform and evidence policy recommendations on various issues and to help monitor the impact of health inequalities and regional variation in child health outcomes. We also use official statistics to brief RCPCH members, political stakeholders and the public about key issues affecting child health services in Wales. We are concerned that the proposed changes could undermine our ability and that of other organisations to effectively monitor and assess outcomes for babies, children and young people across Wales.
Specifically we:
- Called on the Welsh Government to protect rather than reduce the frequency, scope and accessibility of health and care outputs. Child health indicators are already under-represented in high-level statistics and there are already significant gaps in child health data in Wales. A recently published review commissioned by the Welsh Government on child development indicators and measures found that "there is a significant gap in standardised, population-level data for children aged 2-11" with stakeholders identifying this as a "key weakness in the Welsh child development evidence eco system". Any further reduction risks exacerbating this position.
- Requested that, where the Welsh Government propose to merge a number of related datasets (for example, the proposals include the merging of 3 NHS workforce statistical releases), this should not result in shorter, lower quality or overly simplified outputs with little analysis or commentary. Instead, a merged release should, at a minimum, maintain the current level of granularity and analytical depth to assist the Senedd, organisations like RCPCH and the public to scrutinise NHS performance.
- Raised concerns about proposed changes to shortening reports, changing formats or merging outputs creating additional challenges in measuring performance and tracking trends. We also urged the Welsh Government to ensure that all relevant departments are engaged in the process to ensure that indicators used for monitoring or evaluating programmes designed to tackle child poverty, reducing health inequalities and improving wellbeing are not unintentionally compromised.
- Raised accessibility and usability concerns of statistical data following recent changes to the StatsWales platform. Recent changes have reduced functionality and made routine analysis more difficult. As the Welsh Government proposes to shorten reports and signpost to statistics available on StatsWales, we suggested that ensuring the platform was as navigable and user-friendly as possible needed to be a prerequisite.
We respond to a wide range of consultations to ensure that the College’s position, and ultimately children’s health, is represented. Members can get involved in current consultations in Wales by contacting enquiries-wales@rcpch.ac.uk.