Category: Scotland

UK male life expectancy mapped, from Glasgow to Kensington

The data used in the Guardian article quoted from below, on how life expectancy varies across the country, deserved mapping. I’ve focused on UK male life expectancy, which according to the Office of National Statistics varies by 13.3 years between Glasgow (71.1 years) and Kensington and Chelsea (84.4 years).

Map removed as Google Fusion Tables no longer works.

Red pointers represent male life expectancy of less than 75; pink from 75 up to 77; yellow from 77 up to 79; green from 79 up to 81; and blue 81 and over.

If you click on a pointer, you can find out how much longer men in that area can expect to live than Glaswegians, and how much less than residents of Kensington and Chelsea (and tweet it if you wish). Female life expectancy is also included. Continue reading “UK male life expectancy mapped, from Glasgow to Kensington”

Open source test results service adopted by renal patients

UK-wide online system letting patients see results within hours of a test may be used by other specialities

This is an unusual example of a system built by a couple of NHS organisations in one nation – health boards in Scotland in this case – which is then adopted by units across the UK. Continue reading “Open source test results service adopted by renal patients”

Scotland set to lead on minimum unit pricing for alcohol

Councils in north west England are drafting a bylaw for minimum drink prices, but Scotland may get there first

Scotland is increasingly developing distinctive policies on health, such as minimum unit pricing for alcohol, to deal with its particular health problems. You can read other posts and articles by me on Scotland here.
 Continue reading “Scotland set to lead on minimum unit pricing for alcohol”

Online health records can save lives

The crisis-hit £12.7bn NHS IT programme is under attack from the Tories, but it is working well in Scotland

The much-criticised National Programme for IT only covered England, as each of the four UK nations runs its own healthcare. This article looks at Scotland’s relative success in building its emergency care summary system, covering virtually the entire population. Continue reading “Online health records can save lives”

Charting a new course: data analysis of the NHS across the UK

Article on data analysis in the NHS, first published in Health Service Journal, 5 July 2005

Two years ago, Sheila Leatherman, research professor at University of North Carolina’s school of public health, and Kim Sutherland, a senior research associate at University of Cambridge’s Judge institute of management, wrote ‘The Quest for Quality in the NHS’ for the Nuffield Trust, comparing England’s NHS to other developed countries.

The authors noted the lack of a ‘shared robust information base that provides a common understanding of the NHS’s strengths and weaknesses’. Now, Prof Leatherman and Dr Sutherland have attempted to show that such an information base, using independent and routinely-reported data, can and should be compiled – by doing it themselves, through compiling more than 100 charts from numerous sources into a single chartbook of NHS quality.
Continue reading “Charting a new course: data analysis of the NHS across the UK”