Sub-series details: CRDA/24/DS/1995

This dataset was transferred from the Department of Health on 2 CD-ROMs which were received by NDAD on 1 October 1999.

This dataset includes public health data covering the years 1995. Further information about the Public Health Common data set is provided in the Series Catalogue and Dataset Documentation Catalogues. The sub-series consists of 5 datasets comprising a total of 318 tables, which contain various indicators for health regions in England and Wales. Data is arranged by administrative areas, namely District Health Authorities (DHAs), Family Health Service Authorities (FHSAs) and National Health Service (NHS) regions. The 1995 Data Set contains several new indicators, detailed descriptions of the indicators can be seen in the data definitions and user guide in the Dataset Documentation Catalogue reference CRDA/24/DD/1/6/1-2.

The tables in CRDA/24/DS/1995 were transferred to NDAD in the form of Symphony (WR1) spreadsheets, with the file names having meaningful prefixes to reflect the type of data. See CRDA/24/DD/1/6/1-2 for a more detailed explanation of the prefixes. These files were opened in Microsoft Excel 97 (under Windows 95/98). Visual Basic Macros were written to process them so that the headings, subheadings, other metadata, and blank columns or rows between the data were removed and the format of the cells set to Microsoft Excel General format before saving the data in CSV (Comma separated variable) format. In a number of the original files (within CRDA/24/DS/1995/2 and CRDA/24/DS/1995/4), the data for each area is split over two lines. A Visual Basic module was written to move the figures so that there is one line per area.

Some additional processing was carried out on cda5 (CRDA/24/DS/1995/3/5) which lists the English DHAs classified hierarchically into 'families' and 'groups'; in order to retain the classification across the records, the entries in the first two fields were copied into the appropriate, blank cells.

In CRDA/24/DS/1995/5/1/13 (hoa4-1b) the display of data in the original spreadsheet is different. The tables in CRDA/24 normally have a single 'set' of rows of data (one row per area). This table displays 21 columns of data on the top half of the worksheet with 17 columns below (ie each area appears twice). In order to create a structure the same as in the other tables, the second set of columns (excluding the area code and name) were moved to the top half of the table, so that they became additional columns 22 to 36.

Some cells in the original spreadsheets contain real numbers but they are formatted to display as integers and others which have many figures after the decimal point are displayed with just 2 decimal places. In order to preserve the actual data, this formatting has been removed. However, it must be assumed that original users of the spreadsheets would have seen the data as it had been originally formatted. Although some files contain fields that have many decimal places, users are advised that NDAD recommends that all data in the PHCDS is not quoted at more than two decimal places. This is because fields are not formatted with more than two decimal places in the original spreadsheet files. NDAD assumes that this is because the data creators considered the data to be accurate to, at most, two decimal places. The field formats set by NDAD (DOUBLE or INTEGER) have been specified according to the data the cells contain, rather than how they are displayed within the original spreadsheet.

The PHCDS in its original format does not use specific field names as such: generally, spreadsheet packages do not require data to be held within named fields. (The indicators within PHCDS do have original names which have been preserved but these equate to the table name within NDAD). To identify fields within a table, the first field is named either D_CODE (if the data relates to DHAs) or F_CODE (if it relates to FHSAs) and the second AREA (for the name of the area). The rest of the fields have been named sequentially, starting with the third field as F3, the fourth as F4 etc. These are not from the original data files but have been allocated by NDAD during the data conversion process. The column headings in the spreadsheet, supplemented at times by information from the 'Data definition and user guide', form the basis of the field descriptions. Where a spreadsheet contains one or more footnotes, the text was automatically extracted for inclusion in the relevant Table catalogue and is provided at the end of that catalogue under the heading 'Other information'.

No access conditions apply

The language of the materials is .

Public Health Common data set data definitions and user guide for computer files relating to the dataset have been transferred to NDAD and can be consulted via the Dataset Documentation Catalogue.

The data has been divided into five datasets by topic. For access to these datasets, see Links to dataset catalogues. The data is available for District Health Authorities (DHAs), Family Health Service Authorities (FHSAs), NHS Regions and nationally for England and Wales.

Details of the sources which were used to produce the Public Health Common data files and how the data was checked by OPCS are given in the Series Catalogue. For further information about the presentation of the data please see the Dataset Documentation Catalogue, reference CRDA/24/DD/1/6/1-2 for further information.)

No discrepancies were noted in the original spreadsheet files as compared to the expected contents as described in the User Guide for the 1995 PHCDS, see the Dataset Documentation Catalogue,, references CRDA/24/DD/1/6/1-2 . However, during processing/checking of the data, the following anomalies were noticed:

In CRDA/24/DS/1995/5/1/24 (hooa2-3a): Column I, rows 38 to 48 had formulae "G38/H38*100", resulting in value "#DIV/0!"

In CRDA/24/DS/1995/1, the data in the tables covering indicators A8 and A9 data are only available to regional level and the regional data relates to the Standard Regions used by OPCS for statistical purposes. These Standard Regions (based on County boundaries which are not in general co-terminous with Health Authority areas; see the Documentation Catalogue, reference CRDA/24/DD/1/6/1-2) have not been encoded at all in the tables and therefore tables CRDA/24/DS/1995/1/8 and CRDA/24/DS/1995/1/9 have not been included in the relationships set up by NDAD between the tables (to allow users to link data in similar tables within a dataset via the code for the area). In a number of the tables, (eg cdb6 CRDA/24/DS/1995/3/11) there some rows which provide data for two RHAs, for instance, Northern and Yorkshire RHAs are combined under code 'A00+B00'; clearly this affects linking of data with other tables which have separate rows of data for these two RHAs (ie separately under codes 'A00' and 'B00).

Spot checks were carried out to compare the transformed data against the data in the original Symphony files. These included comparing the values of specific fields and checking that the totals of numeric fields were the same. In addition, each table was checked to ensure that the overall number of records and fields remained the same. No discrepancies were detected between the original and transformed data. The only differences found resulted from rounding and/or floating point representation, particularly for example where the original numbers had 12 figures after the decimal point. The transformed data is restricted to the level of accuracy provided by the general format in Excel (generally 8 figures after the decimal point).

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