English data now online

The English data is now on the QOF database joining the Scottish and Northern Ireland data which has also been tidied up a little. The English data was a little delayed by the postal strike eventually arrived safely.

There are a couple of "virtual" indicators, largely relating to prevalence. I have created two depression indicators relating to the prevalence of people requiring screening for depression and those who have a history of depression recorded in the past. I would avoid putting too much weight on the latter as historical coding may be really quite variable between practices. In fact as practices were not specifically working towards these virtual indicators they should all be used with some caution.

I have also been asked about smoking prevalence. There is therefore a virtual indicator here too. Here it relates to the number of smokers amongst those covered by the smoking area (those with CHD, LVD, stroke, asthma, COPD and hypertension) who have been asked. This is not the only way to do it and is purely a judgement call on my part. In particular it may not correlate with some of the "official" registers and is not the one used for payment.

You may also notice that I do not put prevalence information for the palliative care domain on the main prevalence list. For one thing this prevalence is not used for payment. Secondly the numbers are generally so small as to be unreliable and thirdly they are so small they are suppressed for confidentiality reasons in many cases by the departments of health.

There are about half a dozen English practices without names or addresses. There was not a comprehensive look up table included with the English data this time so I have used several different sources. I will try to correct these in time.

Finally we are still awaiting the Welsh data. I have heard nothing official but will keep asking!

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