HES Customer Survey Summary

Following the publication of the annual 2010-11 inpatient HES data in November 2011 the Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC) published a survey seeking feedback from users on their use of our data.

This survey was advertised on HESonline and also on the HSCIC website and ran for 3 months until February 2012 generating 36 responses. Only 15 of these respondents had used any of our publications.

These responses are summarised below with full details of the survey responses available in the accompanying pdf.

Monthly publication

• 4 of the 34 respondents to the question about the provisional monthly publication had used the publication.
• They had found the content met their expectations or contained most of what they needed.
• 3 people used the publication every month.
• Nobody recommended any subjects to be considered as topics of interest.

Annual Inpatient publication

• 7 of the 32 respondents to the question about the annual inpatient publication had used the publication.
• There was a mixed response from the 5 people who responded to the questions about the publication content meeting their expectations.
• Age standardised rates of hospital admissions by PCT for all the most common diagnoses and procedure groups were suggested for inclusion in future publications.

Annual Outpatient publication

• 3 of the 30 respondents to the question about the annual outpatient publication had used the publication.
• The 2 respondents who left feedback about their expectations found the content met their expectations or contained most of what they needed.
• Nobody recommended any additional analyses.

Annual Maternity publication

• Maternal obesity rates
• Normal birth rates

Annual A&E; publication

• 5 of the 27 respondents to the question about the annual A&E; publication had used the publication.
• There was a mixed response from the 4 people who responded to the questions about the publication content meeting their expectations.
• Nobody recommended any additional analyses.

PROMS, critical care and mortality publications

• 4 of the 26 respondents to the question about these publications had used the publications.
• The 3 respondents who left feedback about their expectations found the content met their expectations or contained most of what they needed.

Data Quality

• 15 of the 20 respondents to the question about HES data quality were either satisfied or very satisfied that the data was of suitable quality for their needs. 3 of the 5 respondents who were not satisfied raised concerns about the content or timeliness of the data as opposed to data quality.
• 13 of the 14 respondents who had used explanatory notes or data quality notes found them quite or very useful in providing the information they needed.

Further action

Only one user left contact details asking us to contact them about any consultations we run about the products they use.

The HSCIC will look into the feasibility of adding the new analyses suggested by the survey but this will be constrained by resources and identifying clear definitions for the new analyses.