Indicators updated - 03 November 2020

The following indicators have been updated in the Fingertips associated tool:

·       Smoking status at time of delivery

·       HIV testing coverage, total (%)

The Fingertips associated tool can be accessed here. The change log for the Public Health Dashboard, which includes information on previous indicator updates and information related to changes in the data, can be accessed here. 

Public Health Dashboard update - 04 February 2020

The Public Health Dashboard has been updated to include the post-April 2019 geographies. As a result, all summary ranks have been updated in the tool to reflect the change in the number of counties and unitary authorities.

Due to this change, it hasn’t been possible to calculate summary ranks for the new unitary authorities for the ‘NHS Health Checks’, ‘Alcohol treatment’ and ‘Drug treatment’ domains, as the data for the component indicators were produced for pre-April 2019 geographies.

New data for 2018 to 2019 have also been added for the ‘Child obesity’, ‘Tobacco control’, ‘Alcohol treatment’, ‘Drug treatment’ and ‘Best start in life’ component indicators, allowing for an update of the summary ranks for the 2018 to 2019 period.

To bring the 'Alcohol treatment' and 'Drug treatment' component indicators in line with the published 'Alcohol and drug misuse and treatment statistics', the indicators 'Proportion of dependent drinkers not in treatment (%)', 'Successful completion of alcohol treatment', 'Proportion of opiate users not in treatment (%)' and 'Successful completion of drug treatment' have been replaced with the following indicators respectively:

·       Proportion of dependent drinkers not in treatment (%)

·       Successful completion of alcohol treatment, treatment ratio

·       Proportion of opiates and/or crack cocaine users (OCU) not in treatment (%)

·       Successful completion of drug treatment, treatment ratio

Similarly, in order to bring the 'Best start in life' component indicators in line with other published indicators, the 'Proportion of completed new birth visits (%)' indicator has been replaced with 'Proportion of New Birth Visits (NBVs) completed within 14 days', which is produced for use in PHE's Child and Maternal Health profiles.

The change log for the Public Health Dashboard, which includes information on previous indicator updates and information related to changes in the data, can be accessed here. Trends for the component indicators are available at https://fingertips.phe.org.uk/profile/public-health-dashboard-ft. 

Purpose of the Public Health Dashboard 

The purpose of the dashboard is to support local decision making by bringing existing comparative data into one place and making it accessible and meaningful to a wide audience. 

The dashboard currently provides summary data on: 

·       Best start in life

·       Child obesity

·       Drug treatment

·       Alcohol treatment

·       NHS Health Checks

·       Sexual health services

·       Tobacco control

·       Air quality*

*The air quality service area contains just one interim indicator, which is presented in its original form – this indicator has not been transformed or ranked.

Click here for more details on the criteria for including service areas and indicators.

For each theme, there is one combined (summary rank) indicator made up of several different component indicators.  Based on this, each local authority in each of the service areas have been given a ranking and category description about how local delivery compares with all other local authorities and on a like-for-like basis. 

Click here for more details on the methods used to calculate the summary ranks and the categories. 

The indicator rationale document and the indicator metadata document provide additional information on each of the service areas and component indicators. 

The dashboard builds on and complements our existing products, especially the Local Authority Health Profiles and the Public Health Outcomes Framework which both provide a large amount of information on the public’s health in local places.

Air Quality

The Air Quality indicator was added to the Public Health Dashboard in July 2018.

The air quality team have recommended a two-phased approach for the inclusion of an air quality indicator in the Dashboard. The first phase is the release of the interim indicator. The second phase (longer term) is the development of a summary rank measure.

Benchmarks

LAs can be shown in relation to their nearest statistical neighbours, as defined by the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA, 2018), or by deprivation decile. 

Feedback

We asked users for their comments and feedback to help shape and refine the dashboard.  A summary of the comments and feedback received was presented in Public Health England’s May 2018 report Public Health Dashboard: Summary of feedback received and next steps.

Please send all comments to PHA-OHID@dhsc.gov.uk