Who can help

What can Public Health Observatories do to help?

Each region has a Public Health Observatory, whose role is to support clinicians and commissioners access information on the health of the population. In addition, each PHO has areas of specialist interest. The Eastern Region PHO has the specialist interest for respiratory illness – and a number of data sources and reports are available from their website.

SHA benchmarking and information packs

The Department of Health in conjunction with the ERPHO and National Programme Budgeting team have produced a respiratory health information pack for each SHA area. These packs cover a variety of indicators, that highlight the difference in expected prevalence, diagnosis, admissions, spend and outcome across all SHAs nationally. These can be downloaded for your SHA area from the NHS Networks site.

Get your analyst involved early

Sites that included analyst support from the beginning had a head start with data, and rapidly built the evidence base and understanding for the service change. Those sites without analyst support struggled to understand the importance of data, and later expressed regret as data revealed challenges or misunderstandings which could have been challenged sooner. Early involvement helps ensure that you and the analyst have a shared understanding of the project.