Background

An important element in the development of an evidence base on ethnicity, health and diversity is the identification and review of available sources of data, as well as published literature. Sources of such data may include locally held small scale datasets as well as large scale national datasets.

A number of agencies at the national level currently collect, collate and disseminate quantitative data on a regular basis that potentially provides evidence relevant to ethnicity and health. These include the: Office for National Statistics (ONS), Public Health Laboratory Service (PHLS), Department of Health (DoH), Public Health Observatories (PHOs), and the Health and Safety Executive (HSE). Intermittently, various academic institutions/universities have also undertaken national surveys on specific aspects relevant to the health and wellbeing of the black and minority ethnic population in the UK.

Besides such population surveys, the DoH also collects routine data on specific diseases, conditions or episodes of care for effective management and monitoring in the NHS. Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) provide one of the main routine sources of data on hospital inpatients and day cases. Since 1996, all hospital trusts have been required to record ethnicity as part of this dataset, with variable completion rates in different localities. The NHS has also supported the development of similar ethnic monitoring data in primary care, although this is less well established.

It is currently not known what numbers and types of local or 'micro' datasets are available in the NHS that might be of use in developing the evidence base on ethnicity, health and diversity. Sources of such data might include specific studies carried out to collect data through local surveys, or datasets compiled locally from existing sources of information, such as patient notes. Alternatively, there might be ethnically relevant data collected locally but not currently compiled or tabulated by ethnic origin.