Policy paper

DHSC statistical work programme 2026 to 2027

Published 26 March 2026

Foreword

This page outlines the Department of Health and Social Care’s (DHSC) high-level statistical plans and priorities for 2026 to 2027. DHSC produces and publishes statistics covering a range of topics, including:

• adult social care
• alcohol, drugs and smoking
• cancer
• child, maternal and reproductive health
• chronic conditions
• clinical research
• cross-cutting health and social care statistical outputs
• disability, learning disability and autism
• end-of-life care
• health inequalities
• mental health
• mortality
• obesity, physical activity and diet
• primary care, community and oral health

Included in DHSC’s statistical portfolio are publications produced by:

• DHSC, including the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID), which is a unit within DHSC that is focused on addressing public health
• the Office for Life Sciences (OLS), which is a unit that works jointly with DHSC, the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology and the Department for Business and Trade

This statistical work programme sets out:

• context on the types of statistical publications produced by DHSC
• recent achievements and improvements to DHSC statistical products
• upcoming priorities for further developments to our statistical portfolio

This statistical work programme is published in line with section 8.2 of the Code of Practice for Statistics and has been released alongside a collection of further DHSC statistics: policies and procedures relating to:

• user engagement
• quality management
• compliance with the Code of Practice for Statistics
• data management and confidentiality

DHSC Official Statistics are produced and published in line with the core principles of the Code of Practice for Statistics: trustworthiness, quality and value. Statistics at DHSC contains more information on the types of statistical products published by DHSC and the statistics themselves.

Andrea Prophet, Head of Profession for Statistics, DHSC

Statistics at DHSC

DHSC’s statistical portfolio includes a wide range of product types, from new and innovative dashboards and timely management information releases through to longstanding regular Accredited Official Statistics publications.

We broadly consider any products that DHSC produces that are numerical and produced to inform users about the country’s health and care to be part of our statistical portfolio, and we encourage voluntary application of the Code of Practice for Statistics, wherever possible, for products that do not yet fully meet the standards to be classified as Official Statistics.

DHSC currently publishes around 60 regular Official Statistics and Accredited Official Statistics (as defined by the Office for Statistics Regulation) products each year, as well as publishing various ad-hoc and research and analysis products and supporting a number of cross-government publications. Our statistical products help us to:

• understand society’s health and social care needs
• support decision making
• keep the public informed

Users of DHSC statistics

DHSC has a range of users of our statistics, including:

• DHSC ministers
• DHSC policy officials
• ministers and officials in other government departments
• Parliament
• local authorities
• health and social care professionals
• academics
• charities
• external interest groups
• members of the public

Core principles

DHSC statistics are produced in line with the core principles of the Code of Practice for Statistics, which are:

• trustworthiness: ensuring the public can have confidence in the people and organisations that produce statistics through the integrity, professionalism and impartiality of producers and the statistical system
• quality: using suitable data and appropriate methods to produce reliable statistics that meet user needs. Statistics should inform, rather than mislead, and producers must uphold high standards of transparency and quality assurance
• value: ensuring statistics benefit the public by informing and supporting decision making, action and debate, and making sure statistics can be accessed, understood and used by a wide range of users

Statistical formats

DHSC publishes and disseminates statistics in a variety of ways to meet user needs, including the following.

Statistical bulletins and commentary

Products released in this format typically include:

• the headline findings
• data tables
• data visualisations such as charts, graphs and infographics
• methodology notes to explain how the data was collected and processed, and help users understand how to use the statistics

For example, Adult social care client level data, England: quarterly update to September 2025.

Statistical data tables

These provide the underlying data to support the statistical bulletins or commentary and additional breakdowns that meet users’ needs, such as the data tables published as part of the Abortions statistics for England and Wales: 2023.

Dashboards and interactive tools

A good example of this is the Fingertips platform, which hosts a large collection of public health indicators and data profiles organised into themes.

Statistical publications will often use more than one of these methods across a single publication.

Joint working across the statistical landscape

While DHSC publishes a number of statistical publications on health and social care, many more are published by other organisations, including:

• NHS England
• the NHS Business Services Authority (NHSBSA)
• the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA)
• the Office for National Statistics (ONS)

We work closely with partners to ensure that the health and social care statistical landscape is as coherent and useful as it can be.

As health and social care is generally devolved, the majority of DHSC’s statistical publications are for England only. However, we also work closely with counterparts in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to drive statistical coherence initiatives across the UK, including collaborating on a series of explainer articles on topics such as:

• health inequalities
• cancer waiting times
• ambulance response times

Recent developments and achievements

Acting on user engagement feedback

From December 2023 to March 2024, DHSC ran a joint health and social care statistical outputs consultation, together with NHS England, ONS, UKHSA and NHSBSA, consulting on changes to our statistics products, with the aim of improving coherence and efficiency.

We analysed over 370 pieces of feedback and published the response to this consultation in November 2024 and a further Health and social care statistical outputs consultation follow-up in December 2025.

Feedback from the consultation has been incorporated into developing our statistical priorities, and it remains an important vehicle for ongoing user engagement and continuous improvement across the portfolio.

Some of the changes and improvements made to DHSC products following the consultation include the merging of several different Fingertips profiles on related topic areas, with the aim of streamlining and making things easier for users. For example:

• the previous ‘Admissions for children with long-term conditions’ and ‘Child education’ profiles have been merged into the Child and maternal health profile
• the ‘Perinatal mental health’ and ‘Children and young people’s mental health and wellbeing’ profiles have been combined into a new Perinatal, children and young people’s mental health profile
• a new Adult mental health and wellbeing profile combines the ‘Common mental disorders’ and ‘Severe mental illness’ profiles, as well as the ‘Wellbeing’ topic from the discontinued ‘Mental health and wellbeing JSNA’ profile
• the previous ‘Obesity’ profile and ‘Physical activity data tool’ have been merged into the Obesity, physical activity and nutrition profile

Development of statistical outputs

In the last few years, DHSC has published various new statistical publications and continued to improve and develop its statistical portfolio, as outlined in the following examples.

Providing interactive and visually appealing charts

Health trends in England is a new regular report that summarises information on a broad range of conditions, health outcomes and risk factors for poor health and wellbeing from the large public health data collection on Fingertips. It makes use of ‘Quarto’ to provide interactive and visually appealing charts.

Making use of new data sources

Near to real-time suspected suicide surveillance (nTRSSS) is a regular report on deaths by suspected suicide that acts as an early warning system for indications of change in suicides in order to inform suicide prevention. We have recently changed the frequency of this report to make it more appropriate for identifying trends.

Publishing outputs from innovative data linkage

Produced together with the Home Office, Drug and alcohol treatment for victims and suspects of homicide is one of a series of outputs from the Better Outcomes through Linked Data (BOLD) project. This particular report looks at the use of substance misuse treatment services by victims and suspects of homicide in England.

Transitioning and developing NHS England statistical publications

Several adult social care statistical publications are now published by DHSC but were previously published by NHS England. They have undergone significant development to better meet user needs and make effective use of new data sources and linked data.

Working across topic areas

The impact of NHS talking therapies on monthly employee pay and employment status, England is one of a series of examples of statistical publications that DHSC has supported on to understand the impact of health on the economy, given the importance of and opportunities in this space. ONS, NHS England, DHSC and the Department for Work and Pensions have collaborated to bring together and analyse labour market, census and health data.

Publications and tools tailored to regional public health needs

DHSC’s Local Knowledge and Intelligence Service has begun publishing a new Public health local area statistics collection of products on GOV.UK that are tailored to public health needs in local areas. Initial products include a work and health regional data explorer and a stop smoking services data explorer.

Recent context: NHS England and the 10 Year Health Plan

In March 2025, the Prime Minister announced that NHS England would be brought into DHSC over the following 2 years. Both DHSC and NHS England produce statistical products on health and social care.

As the organisation overall will be smaller, there will need to be consideration of the package of statistical products produced and prioritisations made. This is likely to mean a consolidation in statistical products over time and a reduction in some statistical outputs, following the development of a joint strategy. We will, of course, communicate with users throughout this transition. This statistical work programme focuses on DHSC products, but we continue to work closely with NHS England and will update users as the new department forms.

Statistical producers and leaders in DHSC, NHS England and the wider health and social care statistical system are shaping future outputs in line with the 10 Year Health Plan for England, which the government published in July 2025. This has a big focus on data transparency and quality metrics, and will be factored into plans for the DHSC statistical portfolio.

Plans and priorities for 2026 to 2027

We have looked across our statistical production and outputs, and considered user feedback to identify 3 priority areas to help us improve and develop statistics. These are:

• accessibility: publishing accessible products that meet user needs
• quality: producing high-quality products that instil confidence and trust
• coherence: ensuring coherence and cohesion across health and social care statistics producers

Below we set out what we are committed to achieving over the next 12 months across each of these areas. This is designed to capture our current plans and priorities - these may evolve over time as we respond to changing contexts, capacity and user needs.

Accessible products that meet user needs

Statistics are a foundation of our society, supporting the decisions we make and keeping the public informed. To have this impact, our statistics must be presented in a clear, accessible and engaging way so that all users can understand them.

By ‘accessible’, we mean:

• accessible formats - complying with the Public Sector Bodies Accessibility Regulations 2018 and ensuring that everyone is afforded the opportunity to acquire the same information and enjoy the same services, regardless of disability status
• ease of access - ensuring our statistics are available to all users without prejudice or preference, and particularly that they are easy to find and not hidden away

DHSC builds accessibility needs into any new or existing products as standard.

We continually strive to improve the way in which we present and communicate our data and statistics to ensure they are meaningful and valuable for users, and support society’s needs for health and social care data.

In this space we aim to:

• ensure that the platforms we use to share statistics with users are fit for purpose and meet users’ needs. For example, the technology that runs our current public health data platform, Fingertips, requires updating so the service can run reliably, securely and follow best practice in government digital and data standards. To address this, we are working towards creating a new service for public health data
• continue to improve the accessibility of our products by making data available in more accessible formats, improving data presentation in line with best practices and moving towards more consistent formatting of our outputs
• improve signposting to our products, including developing our GOV.UK statistics pages to make them easier to navigate and exploring the most valuable tools for improving the process of findings statistics for users. We will also make it clearer to users what statistics we will publish and when through advanced notice of statistical outputs and development plans
• continue to engage with users on our products and processes as standard, including setting out our approach to doing so through our DHSC statistics: public involvement and engagement strategy
• ensure the publication components that we publish (statistical commentaries, data tables, summaries and so on) strike the balance of being proportionate and suitably concise while also meeting varied user needs

Quality products that instil confidence and trust

As one of the 3 core principles of the Code of Practice for Statistics, quality is essential in ensuring statistics are the best available estimate of what they aim to measure and are not misleading. DHSC is therefore committed to ensuring that our data and statistics:

• are relevant
• use sound methods
• are thoroughly quality assured

This means we can provide high-quality statistics for health, public health and inequalities to tell the story of our nation’s health and wellbeing.

In this space, we aim to:

• develop our approach to regularly reviewing the maturity of Official Statistics publications, including how publications approach and communicate the suitability of data and methods, applying appropriate quality assurance practices. We will regularly monitor how statistics are used to ensure statistics are well understood by users
• continue to review our portfolio of statistics with the aim of moving towards a considered and streamlined portfolio of products that proportionately support evidence-based decision-making - and adding, changing or removing products as necessary
• review DHSC products that are not currently labelled as ‘Official Statistics’ to identify where there are opportunities to voluntarily apply the Code of Practice for Statistics, and we can improve trustworthiness, quality and value such that products can be designated as ‘Official Statistics in Development’, ‘Official Statistics’ or ‘Accredited Official Statistics’
• review quality assurance processes and publish a quality management policy to ensure we are consistently following best practices, providing high-quality statistics (even at pace) and ensuring quality is always well explained in our products and metadata. This will, therefore, allow users to make informed decisions about the conclusions they can and cannot make from DHSC statistics

Cohesion across health and social care statistics producers

Many health and social care statistics and analyses are published by our arms-length bodies and executive agencies - in particular, NHS England, NHSBSA and UKHSA - as well as by other health and social care statistics producers such as ONS. Therefore, it is a priority for DHSC to build strong cross-government and cross-sector relationships so that we can produce clear and coherent statistics for users.

There are several important groups and mechanisms in place to help ensure that this collaboration and coherence is always at the forefront of statistical production and dissemination, as follows.

Health and Care Statistics Leadership Forum (HCSLF)

Health and social care statistics leaders across DHSC, NHS England, NHSBSA, UKHSA and ONS meet regularly at the HCSLF, with the objective of improving collaboration and coherence across our statistical work. HCSLF concentrates on the strategy for health and care statistics, and provides cross-organisational statistical leadership on emerging priorities in England.

The health and social care statistical outputs consultation (linked above) was a HCSLF initiative led by DHSC that ran from December 2023 to March 2024, consulting on changes to DHSC, NHS England, NHSBSA, UKHSA and ONS statistical products, with the aim of improving coherence and efficiency.

HCSLF priorities for the year 2026 to 2027 include:

• improving the discoverability of health and care statistics across organisations
• considering the appropriate use of artificial intelligence (AI) in the production of health and care statistics
• coherence of approaches to statistical disclosure control, balancing providing detailed information to users with the need to protect individuals
• considering the strategic direction, breadth and value of our collective portfolio of health and care statistics

UK Health Statistics Steering Group (UKHSSG)

UKHSSG, which is led by ONS, seeks to enhance the coherence, production, dissemination and accessibility of health and care statistics in the UK. It is structured through subgroups for each health and social care topic area and an overarching board, and DHSC is represented at both levels. UKHSSG also works closely with HCSLF.

Through UKHSSG, we aim to improve statistical cohesion by:

• improving and aligning publication styles and processes to provide more consistent presentation and communication of statistics to users, as well as improving signposting to products across the health and social care space. The Health and social care statistical outputs consultation response highlighted that most users do not currently find it easy to find the health and social care statistics that they need
• maintaining a shared understanding of priorities and aligning our statistical portfolios (where possible), ensuring health and social care statistics address the highest-priority areas, are relevant and useful for public debate, and provide clear insight to inform decision making at the highest level, while reducing duplication
• taking a consistent approach to transparency. We will ensure alignment of both our internal and external reporting so that the right data is quoted in statements and policy documents, clearly sourced, and publicly available in line with the Code of Practice for Statistics

Contact and feedback

We welcome feedback on all our statistical outputs, policies and practices. Contact: statistics@dhsc.gov.uk.

If you have feedback or require information on a specific statistical publication, contact the responsible statistician or team named on the publication page.