Recently Bernard Benjamin wrote to John Fox, the Deputy Director and Chief Medical Statistician of OPCS, asking what progress had been made in implementing the new statistical arrangements following the Korner report. The following extract from his reply will be of interest to members of the Institute:
"A number of key developments will be of interest: the Hospital Episode System which replaced HIPE is now starting to produce data of sufficient quality for analysis, and preliminary analysis is now being performed; we have in the last three years completed work on Morbidity Statistics in General Practice from the 1981-82 study (including an analysis of socio-economic differences) - published in 1990; MSGP4 is currently in the field (till August) and we plan publication of the report in 1993/4 (ie substantial faster than for previous studies); with the DH we are looking at the possibilities of continuous statistics from general practice (now possible because of the high level of GP computerisation); we have started a continuous health survey (funded by DH) - first year is small ample but sample size has now been increased); we now have a number of formal and informal links with our customers including in particular those in the NHS and those in the academic sector as well as those in central government; the Social Science Forum is looking to establish a Health Statistics Users' Group.
In addition, we have invested substantial sums in moving to modern computer systems and have started to make full use of computer techniques in data collection, database technology, automatic coding, alternative forms of output, and more sophisticated analysis packages. All of which should enable us to become a more outward looking and customer-friendly organisation.''
The Institute has received from OPCS a questionnaire entitled "Statistical information on population and housing, 1996-2016: An invitation to shape future policy''. The questionnaire is too extensive to reproduce in this Newsletter but if there are any readers who would be interested enough to send for a copy of the questionnaire and would subsequently let the Institute know their views, Professor Bernard Benjamin will try to prepare a comprehensive reply on behalf of the Institute as a whole.