{"id":3118,"date":"2023-01-31T15:57:22","date_gmt":"2023-01-31T15:57:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.gov.scot\/health-social-care\/?p=3118"},"modified":"2023-04-11T12:30:52","modified_gmt":"2023-04-11T11:30:52","slug":"why-is-data-so-important-for-the-national-care-service","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.gov.scot\/health-social-care\/2023\/01\/31\/why-is-data-so-important-for-the-national-care-service\/","title":{"rendered":"Why is data so important for the National Care Service?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Consistently collecting data will be essential to the success of the National Care Service<\/a>. The\u202f<\/span>National Care Service (Scotland) Bill<\/span><\/a> includes a provision<\/span>\u202fto allow Scottish Ministers to set information standards and ensure that the NCS and NHS bodies and their contractors comply with these.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

At the moment social care data is currently collected in\u202fmany ways\u202facross Scotland.\u200b <\/b>This can make it difficult to automatically share data between systems, leading to people having to repeat their story many times. This can be frustrating, time consuming and in some cases\u202ftraumatic\u202ffor people receiving care.\u200b<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It also leads to \u202fpoorer quality information. It is difficult to bring together and analyse data if it is\u202fcollected in different ways across the country or locked away in formats like pdfs, which are sometimes difficult to access.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Why should data be collected consistently?\u00a0<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n

Collecting data consistently will be important for\u202fall aspects of data use in the National Care Service. It will be especially vital to ensure the system can understand and meet people\u2019s needs, particularly if they are accessing lots of different services. Making the approach to data collection the same across the country also ensures good quality statistics are provided which can be used to improve services in the future.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It is really important the language used to collect information accurately represents a person\u2019s story. This reduces the likelihood of the person having to repeat the same information about themselves to different services and organisations.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Having data standards (or information standards) is basically having a\u202fcommon approach\u202fto recording data\u202fso that it is collected\u202fconsistently. This enables systems to share data because they can understand each other. It becomes a common language for systems to ensure they are able to share and use information. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

What data will be important for the NCS?<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n

There are several aspects that need to be considered when improving the consistency of data for the NCS:<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n