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NHSScotland Core Workforce Statistics Producer Assessment

The Quality Assurance of Administrative Data (QAAD) is a regulatory standard produced by The Office for Statistics Regulation’s for the quality assurance of administrative data that are used to produce official statistics. The below is an outline of the steps we take to as part of this framework to quality assure our data and our assessment of how we meet these standards.

There are two main parts to this standard:

Risk Profile Matrix

Low Risk, Medium Profile

The NHS Scotland Workforce statistics are supported by clear and long-established arrangements for data supply. There is a good appreciation of the context in which the data are collected and quality assured. The quarterly statistics on the core NHS workforce are the subject of occasional press articles and parliamentary questions but there are many statistical releases that have a higher profile, e.g. accident and emergency waiting times, drug-related deaths, ONS labour market statistics.

Below is a description of our assessment of the assurance activities we undertake under the four practice areas from the Quality Assurance Matrix.

NHSScotland CAMHS and Psychology Workforce Statistics Producer Assessment

The data used to produce the NHSScotland Camhs and Psychology workforce are adhered to the framework of quality assurance set by the Quality Assurance of Administrative Data (QAAD).

As part of the regulatory standard for quality assurance of the data used, the assessment is based on:

Risk Profile Matrix

Low Risk, Medium Profile

The NHS Scotland CAMHS and Psychology Workforce statistics are based on the data obtained through reliable and streamlined processes from CAMHS and Psychology databases, surveys and Turas Training Programme Management ensuring high level of accuracy.

The information collected and presented are used routinely by NES, the Scottish Government and NHS Boards to support local, regional and national workforce planning, to support educational training and planning, and to assess the impact of central Scottish Government funding to expand CAMHS workforce and Psychology Services workforce and monitor the retention of Applied Psychology trainees within NHS Scotland workforce following qualification completion.

Based on the Quality Assurance Matrix, the assessment of the assurance activities for CAMHS and Psychology workforce data collection under the  four practice areas are as below.

Practice area 1: Operational context & administrative data collection

Enhanced Assurance

The introductory pages of the dashboards and data tables provide an overview of the data sources for the quarterly publications of NHS Scotland CAMHS and Psychology workforce and the Data sources and quality assurance area provides detailed information on the data sources.

This includes information on:

What data are published

Background of the data which includes data that are included, excluded and are classified under protected characteristics

Further information that includes key measures specified in the publications and any further data sources used.

Quality assurance and Limitations of the data collected and the sources.

Examples include information on CAMHS Workforce database, Clinical Psychology services Workforce databaseTuras Training Programme Management and Vacancy surveys.

 

Practice area 2: Communication with data supply partners

Enhanced assurance

In accordance with NHSScotland National HR and Shared Services Data Sharing Agreement, the data requirements, legal basis for supply and processing, data transfer processes, data protection and data security  are recorded for CAMHS and Psychology workforce data by NES.

The Data provision timetable details the  census date,  extract date and  the date of publications for employment data, staff in training data and vacancy survey data. All correspondence regarding data collection, data quality, submissions and other queries are through the central mailbox. All communications are archived in the CAMHS and Psychology folder in the mailbox and files are saved in the NES system. This is useful for data quality checks, future references and any records that are beneficial for the publications. Further guidance on the are documented and included in the communications sent to our suppliers.

The central mailbox is the main point of contact for all the data suppliers and users of the publications. This is published in the publication homepage and further information is included in our publications and in the Contact Us webpage of the website. The mailbox is managed by the Data group consisting of analysts who work on the quarterly publications and have developed good stakeholder relationships over the past years.

Feedback regarding the process and  the publications are sought through the webpage, online surveys and emails.   

 

Practice area 3: QA principles, standards and checks applied by data suppliers

Basic to Enhanced Assurance

Further to the information provided in Practice area 1 and Data sources and quality assurance area published in the website, data quality reports for staff in posts are sent to the data suppliers for data checks at the beginning of the publication cycle. This is a detailed extract on the data available of the workforce in their health board or service area and are verified by CAMHS and Psychology Services lead clinicians, who NES work closely with, to ensure a high level of data accuracy.

NHS Board HR data management is not subject to external audit but have their own Audit and Risk Committee that will conduct audits and risk assessments. This includes inspection of data from the systems and processes used to generate data for Official Statistics publications for CAMHS and Psychology workforce.

 

Practice area 4: Producer’s QA investigations & documentation

Enhanced Assurance

CAMHS and Psychology Workforce data sources are published in Data sources and quality assurance area.

The quarterly publications, which include the summaries, data tables and dashboards, are published after rigorous quality assurance checks from both the data providers and within the team. The data received are checked within the internal team and data audits and reviews are undertaken periodically when any discrepancies of data are observed.

Any updates or revisions to the published data will be highlighted on the website and the publications.