Official Statistics

Health and social care statistical outputs consultation: follow-up

Published 5 December 2025

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From December 2023 to March 2024, health and social care statistical producers ran a joint consultation on health and social care statistical outputs. The producers were from the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), NHS England, NHS Business Services Authority (NHSBSA), UK Health Statistics Authority (UKHSA) and Office for National Statistics (ONS).

The consultation had 2 main aims, to seek:

  • views on possible changes to health and social care statistical products
  • an understanding of how clear and valuable users find the current health and social care statistical system

In November 2024, we published our response to the consultation.

This follow-up document gives a further update on our work to improve and streamline our statistical products and respond to the user feedback we received.

General work and updates

This section covers updates to the ‘response to general feedback’ section of the November 2024 consultation response, as well as other announcements since the consultation response.

Over the past year, statistical producers have continued to work together to seek to improve the health and social care statistical landscape. This is both at cross-cutting strategic levels through groups like the Health and Social Care Statistics Leadership Forum (HCSLF) and the UK Health and Social Care Statistics Steering Group (UKHSSG), and across each topic area.

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 individual outputs as a joint strategy is developed.

Similarly, in November 2025 ONS has publicly announced it is reducing its commitments in health analysis and statistics. The specific changes resulting from this reduction are still to be determined. As with the consolidation of statistical products within DHSC and NHS England, users will be kept informed of changes to ONS’s outputs as this moves forward.

Statistical producers and leaders are shaping future deliverables in line with the 10 Year Health Plan that the government announced in July 2025. This plan is for the health and care statistical landscape, including whether it highlights new reporting needs. This has a big focus on data transparency and quality metrics. Expanding the range, content and accessibility of public dashboards is an important step towards this.

Use of dashboards

In the consultation we proposed to publish a higher proportion of outputs in a dashboard or interactive tool format. The consultation response to this question was mixed, and our response was that we will consider moving to dashboards where:

  • this is appropriate
  • a dashboard would improve coherence in each area

Examples of work using dashboards

Some organisations have already begun publishing a greater number of dashboards.

In ONS, ‘Deaths registered weekly in England and Wales’ has successfully moved to a dashboard presentation, following a dual-run trial period with the previous bulletin format. The accompanying data download remains as comprehensive as before.

DHSC already publishes a number of ‘R shiny’ dashboards (for example, on health inequalities) and ‘Power BI’ dashboards. It has recently published additional dashboards as part of the public health local area statistics work to help users explore public health data with a regional focus.

UKHSA continues to add new data to the UKHSA data dashboard as detailed in its ‘what’s new’ section.

NHS England publishes dashboards on a number of topic areas, and has recently published an Acute Provider Table data dashboard that summarises key performance statistics in one place. It will continue to develop and expand, and a new interactive dashboard under the NHS oversight framework that provides a cross-cutting view of trust performance.

NHSBSA currently produces accompanying dashboards for 2 publications and will continue to review against user need.

Commentary around statistical products

In the consultation, we proposed to reduce the level of detailed commentary and reduce the frequency commentary is provided alongside statistical outputs. The consultation response to this question was very mixed. Some respondents were supportive of reductions or automations and others were concerned about the risk of misinterpretation or loss of granular insights that might come from reducing commentary.

As a result, statistical producers are generally taking a case-by-case approach to considering the right level of commentary for each release rather than broadly overhauling their style.

In ONS, where published outputs span topics much wider than health and social care, bulletins themselves now begin with the key statistics summarised in tiles at the top of the article. New formats of bulletins and methodology articles provide guidance up front to define what results can and cannot be used for, including clarifying when cross-nation comparisons are valid.

Data availability

Respondents commented on data availability both as part of the general section questions and in response to topic-specific questions. Comments included requests for topic-specific data and more generally for greater geographical and health inequalities breakdowns.

We passed on this feedback to the relevant statistical leads who will continue to review what is possible and appropriate to make available.

Process of finding statistics

In the consultation, we asked how users find the process of finding the health and social care statistics that they need. The consultation response to this question was clear that there could be improvements to make it easier for users to find the health and social care statistics that they need.

Developments made to make finding statistics easier

ONS’ statistics have undergone a full website transformation, with health a pilot topic. In the new format, health has a topic landing page, with links to every relevant ONS publication and tiles visualising key general trends. This increases the findability of ONS health and social care statistics.

DHSC is working on improved data publication platforms, initially for public health data and statistics and adult social care data and statistics, with a focus on findability and signposting.

NHS England has developed several data hubs. These are resources that bring together links to important datasets, statistical reports and interactive tools on a topic area. These currently exist for:

UKHSA prioritises maximising the value of the statistics it releases for the public, including a focus on how easy it is to find its products. This has resulted in changes to some products. For example, the title of the National HIV data release: data to end of December 2024 has been changed to be more descriptive of the release and therefore easier to find. UKHSA also ensured that all official statistics are signposted on their main landing page.

NHSBSA is developing its own data hub to improve discoverability and coherence of data and insight. They are generally working on a more coherent approach to delivering open data and statistics.

Accessibility and presentation of data

Respondents commented on accessibility and presentation of data both as part of the general section questions and in response to topic-specific questions.

In the November 2024 consultation response we linked readers to each organisations’ published accessibility statements. We also committed that we would continue to look to improve the accessibility of our products, in line with the government accessibility requirements. We are always looking to improve the presentation of data.

Developments made to improve the accessibility and presentation of data

ONS is building upon its existing accessibility standards with the new website formats mentioned in the previous section. These improvements have been tested with various user groups to present important messages more visually while maintaining or enhancing the existing levels of accessibility.

DHSC is embedding the use of R packages ‘aftables’ and ‘afcharts’ to consistently produce accessible tables and charts across products. Accessibility and presentation of data are at the forefront of considerations in designing improved reporting and dissemination platforms for public health and adult social care data.

UKHSA has a programme of work in place to make improvements to the presentation and accessibility of statistics. A recent example of improvements can be seen in the Weekly all-cause mortality surveillance: 2025 to 2026. This now has more accessible charts in line with Analysis Function standards.

NHSBSA’s statistical products have been successfully tested against the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.2. NHSBSA is continuing to improve the presentation of data.

Format of statistics

In the consultation, we asked users for feedback on the format that health and social care data and statistics are provided in.

The consultation response was clear that users were keen to see a range of formats and consistency of downloadable data. We said that we are committed to providing accessible and machine-readable outputs and we will continue to engage with stakeholders on the most appropriate and useful formats of data.

Developments made to the format of statistics

ONS’ website transformation has positively impacted the format of their statistics and downloadable data. For example, ‘Births in England and Wales’ data downloads have been transformed to tidy data format, with plans to transform other child health outputs to match.

In DHSC, all data on Fingertips is consistently available through an application programming interface (API).

UKHSA is looking at where it can add downloadable data as they develop their products. For example, the 31 July norovirus and rotavirus report (first of the new, 2025 to 2026 season) included a downloadable spreadsheet alongside the release for the first time.

In NHSBSA, all charts are downloadable. Data for the most used publication (Prescription Cost Analysis) is also available through an API on NHSBSA’s Open Data Portal. 

The following sections set out the current plans for publications for each of the topic areas in the consultation, compiled by topic leads across organisations.

1. Adult social care

Updates on plans for publications in this area are set out in table 1. Other publications that were in scope for this section, but where there is no update from the November 2024 consultation response, are listed after table 1.

Table 1: updates on plans for publications in adult social care

Publication​ Organisation​ Consultation response Update​
Adult social care activity report, England and Adult social care finance report, England DHSC The report will remain similar to the previous publication. Although NHS England will reduce the data tables, the full data used to produce the tables will continue to be provided in CSV format (current changes are for 2024 to 2025, future years may be subject to further consultation and work).​ This publication has migrated to DHSC from NHS England. The report is now published as a separate activity report and finance report. These reports were published by DHSC for the first time on 23 October 2025. Following the discontinuation of the short and long-term report (SALT) collection, the statistics in the activity report are now aggregated statistics built from client level data (CLD). As such there are necessary methodological and data changes within this report. Within the consultation NHS England proposed reducing the number of data tables in this publication and did so in December of 2024. All finance tables were restored in the October 2025 publication. Due to the change in data source mentioned above, this is not possible for the activity return.
Adult social care in England, monthly statistics​ DHSC​ DHSC will continue to publish these statistics monthly and will include commentary as more metrics are added.​ Following user consultation, from January 2026 we intend to divide the publication into 2 distinct publications with quarterly reporting cycles - a publication based on the client level data collection, and a publication based on the Capacity Tracker data collection. The tables within these publications will display monthly data. 3 months of new data will be published every quarter in January, April, July, and October.
Adult social care statistics in England: an overview NHS England NHS England will no longer publish this publication. Production of this publication has ceased.
Deferred payment agreements NHS England There are no changes planned to this publication from previous years. This publication is migrating to DHSC, with the first publication on GOV.UK due in January 2026.
Guardianship under the Mental Health Act, 1983 NHS England No changes are planned from previous publications. This publication is migrating to DHSC, with the first publication on GOV.UK due in September 2027.
Measures from the adult social care outcomes framework (ASCOF), England NHS England This publication will see some reduction in the commentary and changes to the reported indicators. NHS England does not plan to provide CLD indicators or shadow statistics in the 2024 publication. This publication is migrating to DHSC with the first publication on GOV.UK due 18 December 2025. DHSC will include CLD derived measures in the upcoming publication.
Mental Capacity Act 2005, deprivation of liberty safeguards (DoLS) NHS England There are no planned changes, except where the agreed change for measuring ‘fully assessed’ cases was added This publication is migrating to DHSC with the first publication on GOV.UK due in March 2026.
Personal social services adult social care survey (ASCS), England DHSC The publication will continue on an annual basis. NHS England will reduce commentary in the main report and will reduce the data quality report. (Current changes are for 2024 to 2025, future years may be subject to further consultation and work). This publication has migrated into DHSC with the first publication on GOV.UK published on 30 October 2025.
Personal social services survey of adult carers in England (SACE) NHS England NHS England will reduce commentary on the overall report and will omit some sections of the data quality report. (Current changes are for 2024 to 2025, future years may be subject to further consultation and work). This publication is migrating to DHSC with the first publication on GOV.UK due in June 2026.
Registered blind and partially sighted people NHS England No changes are planned for this publication. The report is next due in 2026 to 2027 This publication is migrating to DHSC with the first publication on GOV.UK due February 2027.
Safeguarding adults (SAC), England DHSC No changes are planned for this publication. This publication has migrated into DHSC with the first publication on GOV.UK published on 27 November 2025.

Other publications in scope in the adult social care topic area

There are no updates from the November 2024 consultation response to the following publications:

2. Cancer

Updates on plans for publications in this area are set out in table 2.

In addition to the actions listed in table 2, the cross-departmental UK and Ireland Association of Cancer Registries (UKIACR) and the UKHSSG cancer theme groups continue to discuss and plan opportunities for improved methodological alignment, coherence, and transparency.

Table 2: updates on plans for publications in cancer

Publication Organisation Consultation response Update
Cancer registration statistics, England NHS England ‘Cancer registration statistics, England’ and ‘Case-mix adjusted percentage of cancers diagnosed at stages 1 and 2 in England’, will merge as planned. The National Disease Registration Service (NDRS) will further examine how to publish a wider range of health and administrative geographies, counts of incidence and mortality data together, and incidence by individual stages of diagnosis for common stageable cancers where possible. This work is in progress. At the point of reporting 2024 cancer registrations, NDRS hopes to publish these outputs alongside each other as separate reports. Planned developments also include incidence counts and rates for small geographic areas. including, upper tier local authority (UTLA) 2024 boundaries, local authority district and unitary authority (LAUA) 2024 boundaries and middle layer super output area (MSOA) using census 2021
Cancer survival in England NHS England ‘Cancer survival in England’ and ‘Index of cancer survival’ will merge as planned by the next release planned for October 2025. NDRS will undertake further work to expand the range of survival estimates for groups by cancer site and age group, to explore creating trend estimates for current estimates, and to seek advice on appropriate treatment combinations and survival approach to employ, to address request for survival estimates by ‘routes to diagnosis’. These outputs are now presented alongside each other on the NHS England website. They will be merged for the next publication, expected to be in January 2026.
Case-mix adjusted percentages of cancers diagnosed at stages 1 and 2 NHS England ‘Cancer registration statistics, England’ and ‘Case-mix adjusted percentage of cancers diagnosed at stages 1 and 2 in England’, will merge as planned. NDRS will further examine how to publish a wider range of health and administrative geographies, counts of incidence and mortality data together, and incidence by individual stages of diagnosis for common stageable cancers where possible. This work is in progress. At the point of reporting 2024 cancer registrations, NDRS hopes to publish these outputs alongside each other, though they will continue to be separate reports for the foreseeable future.
Emergency presentations of cancer: quarterly data NHS England In response to the comments received for this publication, NDRS will address the request for more timely data by exploring publishing this as part of the rapid cancer registration data series, which is approximately 4 months behind real time. This output has been retired and has now been incorporated into the Rapid Cancer Registration Statistics.
Index of cancer survival NHS England ‘Cancer survival in England’ and ‘Index of cancer survival’ will merge as planned by the next release planned for October 2025. NDRS will undertake further work to expand the range of survival estimates for groups by cancer site and age group, to explore creating trend estimates for current estimates, and to seek advice on appropriate treatment combinations and survival approach to employ, to address request for survival estimates by ‘routes to diagnosis’. These outputs are now presented alongside each other on the NHS England website. They will be merged for the next publication, expected to be in January 2026.
National cancer patient experience survey (NCPES) NHS England The team will undertake further engagement with stakeholders and survey advisory groups when the publications reporting suite is reviewed. The team will further consider making more granular and raw data available. The new 5-year contract includes planned survey redevelopment, involving extensive stakeholder engagement. NHS England is providing record level data, where data sharing arrangements are in place.
Under 16 cancer patient experience survey NHS England The team will undertake further engagement with stakeholders and survey advisory groups when the publications reporting suite is reviewed. The team will further consider making more granular and raw data available. The new 5-year contract includes planned survey redevelopment, involving extensive stakeholder engagement. NHS England is providing record level data, where data sharing arrangements are in place.

Other publications in scope in the cancer topic area

There are no updates from the November 2024 consultation response to Routes to diagnosis (produced by NHS England).

3. Child, maternal and reproductive health

Updates on plans for publications in this area are set out in table 3. Other publications that were in scope for this section, but where there is no update from the November 2024 consultation response are listed after table 3.

Table 3: updates on plans for publications in child, maternal and reproductive health

Publication Organisation Consultation response Update
Abortion statistics for England and Wales DHSC No changes are planned for this publication. The publication of ‘Abortion Statistics for England and Wales’ from 2023 onwards has been delayed due to several operational issues. These include issues associated with moving to a new data processing system and an increase in the number of paper abortion notification forms to process. However, DHSC aim to publish the 2023 data in winter 2025 to 2026.
Admissions for children with long-term conditions DHSC DHSC will merge ‘Admissions for children with long-term conditions’ and ‘Child education’ with child and maternal health profile and undertake further consultation with a targeted user base on detailed restructure and refinement of ‘Child and maternal health profiles’. The aim is to start from December 2024. The publication has been merged with the child and maternal health profile. Further consultation has taken place on the detailed restructure of the profile. Implementation of these changes began in October 2025.
Baby names in England and Wales ONS No changes are planned for this publication. This is currently a data only publication, but future format is under consideration.
Birth characteristics in England and Wales ONS ONS will produce a mock-up of the combined ‘Births in England and Wales’, which will include priority tables from the births by parents’ characteristics output, and ‘Birth characteristics in England and Wales’ release and will consult users on this output’s suitability. From the 2023 data year, birth characteristics has been merged into a single annual Births in England and Wales publication, supported by 3 datasets (registrations, linked with notifications, and parents’ country of birth). A follow up consultation is planned.
Births by parents’ characteristics in England and Wales ONS ONS will produce a mock-up of the combined ‘Births in England and Wales’, which will include priority tables from the births by parents’ characteristics output, and ‘Birth characteristics in England and Wales’ release and will consult users on this output’s suitability. From the 2023 data year, births by parents’ characteristics has been merged into a single annual Births in England and Wales publication, supported by 3 datasets (registrations, linked with notifications, and parents’ country of birth). A follow up consultation is planned.
Births by parents’ country of birth, England and Wales ONS No changes are planned for this publication. From the 2024 data year, birth by parents’ country of birth has been merged into a single annual Births in England and Wales publication, supported by 3 datasets (registrations, linked with notifications, and parents’ country of birth). A follow up consultation is planned.
Births in England and Wales ONS ONS will produce a mock-up of the combined ‘Births in England and Wales’, which will include priority tables from the births by parents’ characteristics output, and ‘Birth characteristics in England and Wales’ release and consult users on this output’s suitability. From the 2023 data year, birth by parents’ country of birth has been merged into a single annual Births in England and Wales publication, supported by 3 datasets (registrations, linked with notifications, and parents’ country of birth). A follow up consultation is planned.
Breastfeeding at 6 to 8 weeks after birth DHSC DHSC will proceed with a feasibility study for change of data source. Our intention is to aim for the change in data source at the end of 2024 to 2025. The publication will reduce to annual, with data publication potentially reducing to annual too. The change of data source has been delayed due to data completeness and did not take place at the end of 2024 to 2025. This change is still envisaged.
Child and infant mortality in England and Wales ONS This publication frequency will not change. However, the presentation of data and results may change as part of a wider restructure of ONS’ child health statistics. ONS is assessing the usability of the datasets for this release. Similar to the Births in England and Wales publication, the goal is to redesign the tables into a format more suited to data analysis, while retaining the current provision of statistics.
Child and maternal health profiles DHSC DHSC will merge ‘Admissions for children with long-term conditions’ and ‘Child education’ with child and maternal health profile and undertake further consultation with a targeted user base on detailed restructure and refinement of ‘Child and maternal health profiles’. The aim is to start from December 2024. These publications merged in October 2025. Further user engagement has taken place on the restructure of the profile. Implementation of these changes began in October 2025.
Child development outcomes at 2 to 2 and a half years DHSC DHSC will proceed with a feasibility study for change of data source. Our intention is to aim for the change in data source at the end of 2024 to 2025. The publication will reduce to annual, with data publication potentially reducing to annual too. The change of data source has been delayed due to data completeness and did not take place at the end of 2024 to 2025. This change is still envisaged.
Child education DHSC DHSC will merge ‘Admissions for children with long-term conditions’ and ‘Child education’ with child and maternal health profile and undertake further consultation with a targeted user base on detailed restructure and refinement of ‘Child and maternal health profiles’. The aim is to start from December 2024. The publication merged with the child and maternal health profile in October 2025. Further user engagement has taken place on the restructure of the profile. Implementation of these changes began in October 2025.
Childhood vaccination coverage statistics, England, quarterly and annual publications. UKHSA annual publications were published by NHS England for the pre financial year 2024 to 2025 No changes are planned for this publication. UKHSA now publishes the annual Cover of Vaccination Evaluated Rapidly (COVER) statistics, taking over this publication from NHS England, ensuring that as well as the quarterly COVER data, these are now produced by a single organisation. The methodology has not changed. The data has also been made available on the UKHSA data dashboard.
Conceptions in England and Wales ONS No changes are planned for this publication. Usership is being monitored to see if reductions in conceptions statistics is appropriate.
Female genital mutilation NHS England NHS England will go ahead with the proposal from February 2025 for the Q2 (July to September) 2024 to 2025 report onward, to publish data each quarter but stop producing the written report and excel files. The annual report will remain unchanged. Proposed changes have been actioned.
Health visitor services delivery metrics DHSC The source is expected change to the Community Services Dataset at some date in the future, subject to data quality. The change of data source has been delayed due to data completeness and did not take place at the end of 2024 to 2025. This change is still envisaged.
Quarterly conceptions of women under 18 years, England and Wales ONS No changes are planned for this publication. This publication has ceased due to lack of reported users during consultation. Quarterly breakdowns of data are provided in the annual publication.
Sexual and reproductive health: annual update DHSC DHSC will undertake further consultation on this publication with a targeted user base on detailed restructure and refinement of sexual and reproductive health profiles. The aim is to start from December 2024. Further consultation on this publication is expected to take place in 2026 to 2027.
Unexplained deaths in infancy, England and Wales ONS For now, ONS will continue to produce this publication as an annual publication. However, the presentation of data and results may change as a result of ONS’ wider restructure of child health statistics. ONS will continue to produce this publication as an annual publication. The release may be transitioned to data-only as ONS evaluates the release’s priority among the organisation’s health publications.

Other publications in scope in the child, maternal and reproductive health area

There are no updates from the November 2024 consultation response to the following publications:

4. Chronic conditions

In the consultation and November 2024 response, this section was previously titled ‘major conditions’.

Updates on plans for publications in this area are set out in table 4. Other publications that were in scope for this section, but where there is no update from the November 2024 consultation response are listed after table 4.

Since the consultation response, the 10 Year Health Plan for England has been published. This included a commitment to Modern Service Frameworks in 2026 for cardiovascular disease (CVD), frailty and dementia. In the CVD area, a new delivery model (‘Prevention Accelerators’) is to be trialled.

The Liver disease profile was not included in the original consultation, however DHSC retired this on 2 December 2025 . This was following a review of profiles and a need to streamline and avoid duplication within Fingertips. The profile was reviewed to ensure where possible, indicators or equivalent data continue to be published in other publications. Only a small number of indicators (3 out of 14) have been discontinued. The historic data for those indicators will continue to be available.

Table 4: updates on plans for publications in chronic conditions

Publication Organisation Consultation response Update
Cardiovascular disease prevention audit (CVDPREVENT) DHSC There are no proposals to make changes to this publication based on the feedback. However, DHSC will bring a subset of indicators from CVDPREVENT into the CVD profile. Some CVDPREVENT indicators have been brought into the CVD profile.
Cardiovascular disease and Diabetes profiles DHSC Further work to understand user need is required for these profiles. Once this is carried out, DHSC will place a more detailed plan on the front page of each profile (CVD and diabetes). There are now separate profiles for CVD and diabetes. These changes were implemented during 2024 to 2025, as well as improvements to simplify landing page content. Both profiles are due for updates in the latter part of 2025 to 2026 financial year.
Cardiovascular disease prevention packs DHSC Further work to understand user need is required for this publication. Once this is carried out, DHSC will place a plan for future ‘CVD prevention packs’, or a replacement product, on the front page of the CVD profile. This product is paused until further capacity is identified to conduct this work and update.
Dementia surveillance factsheet DHSC Monthly publishing of this factsheet will continue. DHSC will consult on potential integration of indicators from the Dementia new indicators factsheet into the ‘Dementia profile’ or the ‘Dementia surveillance factsheet’ in the future. Further work to understand user need is required. Once this is carried out, DHSC will place a more detailed plan on the front page of the ‘Dementia profile’. Monthly publishing of this factsheet will continue until the end of financial year 2025 to 2026. A review of indicators with system partners is underway.
Inequalities in mortality involving common physical health conditions, England ONS and DHSC ONS will explore options for funding and resourcing the production of more up-to-date and disaggregated statistics on ‘Inequalities in mortality involving common physical health conditions, England’, subject to statistical quality considerations and acknowledging that characteristics recorded in Census 2021 become increasingly outdated over time. ONS is continuing to explore funding options for updating these statistics.
Interactive health atlas of lung conditions in England (INHALE) - now ‘Respiratory disease’ profile DHSC Further work to understand user need is required for this profile. Once this is carried out, DHSC will place a more detailed plan on the front page of the profile. Not all indicators are regularly updated and there is a need to find out whether all indicators are still valued by users. Indicators proposed to be discontinued have been identified and a detailed plan has been added to the profile front page. Changes were implemented on 2 December 2025.
Musculoskeletal health: local profiles DHSC Further work to understand user need is required for these profiles. Once this is carried out, DHSC will place a more detailed plan on the front page of the profile. DHSC carried out further stakeholder engagement by placing a proposal on the profile page and requesting feedback through a questionnaire. It is expected that changes will be implemented early in 2026.
NHS Health Check DHSC There is no proposal to change the profile at this time. However, DHSC will explore the issues raised by respondents, with a view to making further data available in future. This profile continues to be published quarterly. There are ongoing efforts to get additional data that can provide further intelligence around health inequalities.

Other publications in scope in the chronic conditions topic area

There are no updates from the November 2024 consultation response to Musculoskeletal health: trends, risk factors and disparities in England (produced by DHSC).

5. COVID-19 and influenza and COVID-19 vaccinations

Updates on plans for publications in this area are set out in table 5.

Table 5: updates on plans for publications in COVID-19 and COVID-19 and influenza vaccinations

Publication Organisation Consultation response Update
Coronavirus as recorded in primary care NHS England NHS England will continue with the proposal to discontinue this report. This has been discontinued.
National flu and COVID-19 surveillance reports UKHSA No changes are planned for this publication. Based on user feedback, the methodology note has been expanded to include details on the how the data is collected, along with other important information.
Seasonal flu and COVID-19 vaccination uptake in frontline healthcare workers UKHSA No changes are planned for this publication. Based on user feedback, the publication now includes a clear explanation on when in the year they are published.
UK coronavirus dashboard UKHSA No changes are planned for this publication. This has been replaced with the UKHSA Data dashboard.
UKHSA data dashboard UKHSA No changes are planned for this publication. Data sources continue to be added to the dashboard, as detailed in the what’s new page.

6. Disability, learning disability and autism

Updates on plans for publications in this area are set out in table 6. Other publications that were in scope for this section, but where there is no update from the November 2024 consultation response, are listed after table 6.

NHS England has also created a neurodevelopmental data hub and a learning disability data hub, so users can more easily locate relevant content.

Table 6: updates on plans for publications in disability, learning disability and autism

Publication Organisation Consultation response Update
Learning disability profiles DHSC Having reviewed the feedback, further work to understand user need in more detail is required to inform decisions regarding the future of this publication. DHSC intends to continue the learning disabilities profile with a smaller number of indicators. A detailed plan has been added to the front page of the profile and changes were implemented on 2 December.
Learning disability services monthly statistics NHS England NHS England will include feedback from the consultation in its publication planning and development process for this publication. As part of this process, NHS England reviews feedback from stakeholders to help inform future development. NHS England is re-naming the learning disability services statistics monthly publication to more accurately reflect the content of this series following further consultation.
Outcomes for disabled people in the UK ONS The Annual Population Survey is a major source of information for this publication, but it is currently undergoing transformation. Therefore, ONS will pause the publication until the required development work, which will also include exploration of alternate administrative data sources, has been completed. However, the development work required for this product is not a current priority. ONS has been exploring methods to estimate self-reported health and disability status using administrative data. The first stages of this project, scoping different data sources for their feasibility as an alternative input to these statistics, is complete. Statistical modelling to assess how consistent these alternative sources’ estimates are of disability status is underway. Given the uncertainty in sources and methods used to produce these statistics, there is no current schedule for when this publication will next be produced.

Other publications in scope in the disability, learning disability and autism topic area

There are no updates from the November 2024 consultation response to Autism statistics (produced by NHS England).

7. Elective activity

Updates on plans for publications in this area are set out in table 7. Other publications that were in scope for this section, but where there is no update from the November 2024 consultation response, are listed after table 7.

In addition, NHS England has been publishing health inequalities information on referral-to-treatment waiting times for different patient groups monthly since 17 July 2025.

NHS England has also published 2 new dashboards:

The ‘Referral to Treatment waiting times dashboard’ is designed to make the monthly Accredited Official Statistics more accessible. The public can see the latest published waiting times for their local provider, by treatment function, and compare with other providers.

The ‘Waiting List Minimum Data Set (WLMDS) dashboard’ is designed to make a wider range of management information available than that previously available in the published excel summary file. The dashboard allows users to view timeseries data by provider and treatment function (from September 2021), with a greater level of detail. It is being developed in phases. It is planned that future releases will include additional detail and data download functionality. 

Release of these dashboards supports the Elective Reform Plan commitment to improve transparency of elective waiting times metrics.

Table 7: updates on plans for publications in the elective care area

Publication Organisation Consultation response Update
Consultant-led outpatient referrals NHS England NHS England intends to discontinue this publication permanently. The publication has been paused since May 2024. The collection and reporting was discontinued following publication of the data for March 2024. Links to alternative data sources have been provided.
Consultant-led referral to treatment waiting times NHS England NHS England has started to make some information available from the ‘Waiting list minimum data set’ alongside the official statistics. NHS England has a programme of work to identify data quality issues and, through regional teams, to support providers to address them. NHS England does not currently have a timetable in mind for the switchover from ‘Consultant-led referral to treatment waiting times’ to ‘Waiting list minimum data set’, although it remains the longer-term intention to make this transition. This is dependent on the rate of progress with which data quality can be improved and making sure arrangements are in place for an orderly transition. NHS England will revisit the issue and consult again, if necessary, in due course. NHS England continues to publish information from the Waiting List Minimum Data Set alongside the official statistics. It is taking action to improve the quality of those data.
Diagnostic imaging dataset NHS England NHS England will consider the request for data on whether the procedure led to a diagnosis and the type of diagnosis, when the next set of changes to this publication are developed. Following a public consultation, a new version of the ‘Diagnostic Imaging Dataset’ will go live in April 2026. Read more about the Diagnostic Imaging Data Set (DIDS) data product.
Diagnostics waiting times and activity data NHS England NHS England will consider the requests for greater granularity for adult and paediatric waits and different audiology tests, and inclusion of more respiratory tests, when the next set of changes to this publication are developed and consult separately on the proposals. The information we publish about activity in Community Diagnostic Centres switched to a new data source from April 2025, which provides data on a wider range of tests.
Direct access audiology waiting times NHS England In light of the consultation responses, NHS England intends to discontinue this publication permanently. The publication has been paused since March 2020. The collection and reporting have been discontinued. Links to alternative data sources have been provided.

Other publications in scope in the elective activity topic area

There are no updates from the November 2024 consultation response to the following publications:

8. End of life care

Updates on plans for publications in this area are set out in table 8. Other publications that were in scope for this section, but where there is no update from the November 2024 consultation response, are listed after table 8.

Table 8: updates on plans for publications in end of life care

Publication Organisation Consultation response Update
Care homes factsheet DHSC DHSC reviewed this factsheet with the view of publishing a new expanded factsheet for integrated care board (ICB) and ICB sub-locations in autumn 2024. DHSC will produce quarterly updates of this. A revised factsheet was published in November 2024 and has been updated quarterly.
Palliative and end of life care profiles DHSC DHSC will continue annual updates of the profiles including indicators describing place of death, deaths in care homes of temporary residents, emergency hospital admissions near end of life and the care home bed rate. Annual updates of the listed indicators continue, with the next planned for winter 2025. In August 2025, supporting mortality indicators were added and obsolete indicators removed.
Place of death factsheet DHSC DHSC reviewed this factsheet with the view of publishing revised factsheets for ICB and ICB sub-locations in autumn 2024. DHSC will produce quarterly updates of this. A revised factsheet was published in December 2024 and has been updated quarterly.

Other publications in scope in the end of life care topic area

There are no updates from the November 2024 consultation response to the following publications:

9. Health inequalities

Updates on plans for publications in this area are set out in table 9. Other publications that were in scope for this section, but where there is no update from the November 2024 consultation response, are listed after table 9.

Table 9: updates on plans for publications in the health inequalities area

Publication Organisation Consultation response Update
Avoidable mortality in the UK ONS ‘Avoidable mortality in the UK’, ‘Socioeconomic inequalities in avoidable mortality in England’ and ‘Socioeconomic inequalities in avoidable mortality in Wales’ will merge from 2025, and subject to population data availability, ONS expect annual reporting to continue. ‘Avoidable mortality’ data is now one publication, incorporating socioeconomic inequalities in England and Wales. For the publication of 2024 statistics, ONS is looking at consolidating their datasets into fewer and more efficient outputs, whilst retaining all current statistics.
COVID-19 health inequalities monitoring in England tool (CHIME) DHSC DHSC intends to formally stop updating the CHIME tool  and expects to archive the tool and indicator content in 2025. DHSC will signpost users to indicators that remain active in other products. The CHIME tool is no longer being updated but remains publicly available.
Health inequalities dashboard DHSC DHSC is exploring the best way to implement merging the ‘Health inequalities dashboard’ with the ‘Segment tool’. This change has not been implemented as DHSC is considering how best to provide data from these tools in future.
Health state life expectancies by national deprivation deciles, England ONS ONS intends to merge ‘Health state life expectancies by national deprivation deciles, England’, ‘Health state life expectancies by national deprivation quintiles, Wales’, ‘Health state life expectancies, UK’ and ‘Life expectancy for local areas of the UK’. Subject to data availability, ONS expects annual reporting to continue. ONS will conduct a sources and methodological review during 2025 and consult on proposals for future proofing these releases. In particular, the review will explore the scope of linked administrative data sources to model health states suitable for use in health state life expectancy estimation. ONS will set up a research working group and actively involve stakeholders in needs assessment, research questions and project deliverables. ONS has merged the ‘Health state life expectancies by national deprivation deciles, England’ and ‘Health state life expectancies by national deprivation quintiles, Wales’ releases and expect annual reporting to continue. Development work is currently underway to explore the scope of linked administrative data for future use in health state life expectancy.
Health state life expectancies by national deprivation quintiles, Wales ONS ONS intends to merge ‘Health state life expectancies by national deprivation deciles, England’, ‘Health state life expectancies by national deprivation quintiles, Wales’, ‘Health state life expectancies, UK’ and ‘Life expectancy for local areas of the UK’. Subject to data availability, ONS expects annual reporting to continue. ONS will conduct a sources and methodological review during 2025 and consult on proposals for future proofing these releases. In particular, the review will explore the scope of linked administrative data sources to model health states suitable for use in health state life expectancy estimation. ONS will set up a research working group and actively involve stakeholders in needs assessment, research questions and project deliverables. ONS has merged the ‘Health state life expectancies by national deprivation deciles, England’ and ‘Health state life expectancies by national deprivation quintiles, Wales’ releases and expect annual reporting to continue. Development work is currently underway to explore the scope of linked administrative data for future use in health state life expectancy.
Health state life expectancies, UK ONS ONS intends to merge ‘Health state life expectancies by national deprivation deciles, England’, ‘Health state life expectancies by national deprivation quintiles, Wales’, ‘Health state life expectancies, UK’ and ‘Life expectancy for local areas of the UK’. Subject to data availability, ONS expects annual reporting to continue. ONS will conduct a sources and methodological review during 2025 and consult on proposals for future proofing these releases. In particular, the review will explore the scope of linked administrative data sources to model health states suitable for use in health state life expectancy estimation. ONS will set up a research working group and actively involve stakeholders in needs assessment, research questions and project deliverables. ‘Health state life expectancies, UK’ has not been merged with any other health state life expectancies publications, and ONS is still exploring options for merging these publications. Development work is currently underway to explore the scope of linked administrative data for future use in health state life expectancy.
Life expectancy for local areas of the UK ONS ONS intends to merge ‘Health state life expectancies by national deprivation deciles, England’, ‘Health state life expectancies by national deprivation quintiles, Wales’, ‘Health state life expectancies, UK’ and ‘Life expectancy for local areas of the UK’. Subject to data availability, ONS expects annual reporting to continue. ONS will conduct a sources and methodological review during 2025 and consult on proposals for future proofing these releases. In particular, the review will explore the scope of linked administrative data sources to model health states suitable for use in health state life expectancy estimation. ONS will set up a research working group and actively involve stakeholders in needs assessment, research questions and project deliverables. ‘Life expectancy for local areas of the UK’ has not been merged with any other health state life expectancies publications, and ONS is still exploring options for merging these publications. Development work is currently underway to explore the scope of linked administrative data for future use in health state life expectancy.
Segment tool DHSC DHSC is exploring the best way to implement merging the ‘Health inequalities dashboard’ with the ‘Segment tool’. This change has not been implemented as DHSC is considering how best to provide data from these tools in future.
Socioeconomic inequalities in avoidable mortality in England ONS ‘Avoidable mortality in the UK’, ‘Socioeconomic inequalities in avoidable mortality in England’ and ‘Socioeconomic inequalities in avoidable mortality in Wales’ will merge from 2025, and subject to population data availability, ONS expects annual reporting to continue. The bulletin for this publication has now been discontinued, and data has been incorporated into the annual ‘Avoidable Mortality in England and Wales’ publication.
Socioeconomic inequalities in avoidable mortality in Wales ONS ‘Avoidable mortality in the UK’, ‘Socioeconomic inequalities in avoidable mortality in England’ and ‘Socioeconomic inequalities in avoidable mortality in Wales’ will merge from 2025, and subject to population data availability, ONS expects annual reporting to continue. The bulletin for this publication has now been discontinued, and data has been incorporated into the annual ‘Avoidable Mortality in England and Wales’ publication.
Spotlight DHSC DHSC is currently exploring ways to update ‘Spotlight’, considering how best to meet the need for sub-national data, and how to integrate the tool with other outputs on health inequalities. Spotlight was last updated on 30 October 2024 and regional data were added for the first time for some indicators. No further updates of the tool are planned and DHSC is considering alternative ways of making some of its indicators available.

Other publications in scope in the health inequalities topic area

There are no updates from the November 2024 consultation response to Trend in life expectancy by National Statistics socioeconomic classification, England and Wales (produced by ONS).

10. Mental health

Updates on plans for publications in this area are set out in table 10. Other publications that were in scope for this section, but where there is no update from the November 2024 consultation response, are listed after table 10.

The Co-occurring Substance Misuse and Mental Health Issues profile was not included in the original consultation, however this was removed from Fingertips on 2 December 2025. This was following a review of profiles and a need to streamline and avoid duplication within Fingertips. Indicators previously published in this profile are available within the Adult Mental Health and Wellbeing profile profile and through the National Drug Treatment Monitoring System (NDTMS) website.

Table 10: updates on plans for publications in the mental health area

Publication Organisation Consultation response Update
All statistical products produced by NHS England NHS England For the review of all products on mental health produced by NHS England, NHS England will engage further with users ahead of any changes. NHS England ran a public consultation on planned changes to the Mental Health Services Data Set (MHSDS) monthly publication and the mental health annual bulletin, which closed on 12 October. A further consultation is planned for changes to the NHS England quarterly dashboard.
’Children and young people’s mental health and wellbeing profile’ DHSC ‘Children and young people’s mental health and wellbeing’ profile and ‘Perinatal mental health’ profile will merge. DHSC will review indicators and geographical boundaries, and will undertake end user engagement through focus groups. Results from user engagement were supportive of this profile being merged with the ‘Perinatal mental health’ profile. The new and combined Perinatal, children and young people’s mental health profile, was published on 4 November 2025 as an ‘official statistic in development’. It incorporates the majority of indicators from the original profiles. User engagement provided suggestions for future indicators which will be incorporated into plans for future development.
Children living with parents in emotional distress DHSC DHSC will review this publication to assess the underlying methodology and ongoing resourcing of annual updates across DHSC and Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) as this is a joint publication. DWP has reviewed and reduced the content of its annual publications with a focus on statutory measures. ‘Understanding Society Longitudinal Study’ is being explored as part of the methodology review for estimating mental health needs of children and young people at local level.
’Common mental health disorders (CMHD) profile’ DHSC ‘Severe mental illness (SMI)’ profile and ‘Common mental health disorders (CMHD)’ profile will merge. DHSC will review indicators and geographical boundaries, and will undertake end user engagement through focus groups. DHSC conducted a user engagement and feedback exercise in summer 2025. There was support for a new, combined Adult mental health and wellbeing profile, which was published on 4 November 2025 as an ‘Official Statistic in Development’
Mental Health Act statistics, annual figures NHS England NHS England will examine where there is duplication between the annual and monthly publication. It will engage with users to better understand which measures, breakdowns and outputs are useful, which can be updated or removed, and whether there are any new requirements. NHS England will develop a plan for publication and outputs going forward. NHS England has further developed and enhanced the reporting for the Mental Health Act, including more metrics within the monthly publication, and developing the Mental Health Act dashboard to include both monthly and annual data.
Mental health bulletin NHS England NHS England will examine where there is duplication between the annual and monthly publication. It will engage with users to better understand which measures, breakdowns and outputs are useful, which can be updated or removed, and whether there are any new requirements. NHS England will develop a plan for publication and outputs going forward. NHS England has consulted on proposals to retire the annual bulletin and which yearly measures are important to users to continue trend data.
‘Mental health and wellbeing Joint Strategic Needs Assessment (JSNA) profile’ DHSC The proposal is to remove this profile as indicators and topic content are covered by the remaining mental profiles. The exception to this process is the wellbeing topic, that for adults is included in the ‘Mental health and wellbeing JSNA’ profile only. The combined and revised perinatal and children and young people mental health profile will cover wellbeing, and DHSC will add the wellbeing topic in the ‘Mental health and wellbeing JSNA’ profile to the new adult mental health profile (and follow the outlined review process). This approach will reduce duplication, improve end user experience and will improve resourcing for profiles updates. This profile was removed from Fingertips on 4 November 2025. DHSC conducted a user engagement and feedback exercise over summer 2025. New and combined Perinatal, children and young people’s mental health profile and Adult mental health and wellbeing profile, were proposed and accepted. Following this engagement feedback, a ‘Wellbeing’ topic was incorporated into the Adult mental health and wellbeing profile, published on 4 November 2025.
Mental health services monthly statistics NHS England NHS England will examine where there is duplication between the annual and monthly publication. It will engage with users to better understand which measures, breakdowns and outputs are useful, which can be updated or removed, and whether there are any new requirements. NHS England will develop a plan for publication and outputs going forward. NHS England has consulted on proposals to remove some metrics from the publication along with the formatted excel file. The consultation also included feedback about how the publication could be improved further for users.
’Perinatal mental health profile’ DHSC ‘Children and young people’s mental health and wellbeing’ profile and ‘Perinatal mental health’ profile will merge. DHSC will review indicators and geographical boundaries, and will undertake end user engagement through focus groups. DHSC conducted a user engagement and feedback exercise over summer 2025. Results from the engagement were supportive for the proposed profile merger. The new and combined Perinatal, children and young people’s mental health profile was published on 4 November 2025 as an ‘official statistic in development’.
‘Severe mental illness profile’ DHSC ‘Severe mental illness (SMI)’ profile and ‘Common mental health disorders (CMHD)’ profile will merge. DHSC will review indicators and geographical boundaries, and will undertake end user engagement through focus groups. DHSC conducted a user engagement and feedback exercise over summer 2025.  Results from the engagement were supportive of the merger. The new and combined Adult mental health and wellbeing profile was published on 4 November 2025 as an ‘official statistic in development’.
Suicide prevention profile DHSC DHSC will review indicators and geographical boundaries to reduce duplication. This profile will be aligned with other DHSC Fingertips profiles in relation to geographies presented and profiles settings. There are no planned changes to the content of this profile.

Other publications in scope in the mental health topic area

There are no updates from the November 2024 consultation response to the following publications:

11. Mortality

Updates on plans for publications in this area are set out in table 11. Other publications that were in scope for this section, but where there is no update from the November 2024 consultation response, are listed after table 11.

ONS recently completed a consultation on ONS suicide statistics which focused on gathering feedback from users on the presentation of ONS suicide statistics. A theme of this consultation was asking users for their preferences on presenting suicide statistics based on when the death was registered or when the death occurred. Due to the length of time between deaths occurring and being registered for some deaths (such as suicide), all ONS mortality outputs have historically been presented on a registration basis. However, there is a demand from users for more occurrence-based mortality statistics. ONS published its response to the consultation on 3 October 2025, as part of the annual suicides release. The response also includes information on how the ONS will improve the communication of all ONS mortality statistics.   

As per the 2025 to 2026 publication of the Adverse Weather and Health Plan, UKHSA is preparing to publish a new annual ‘cold mortality monitoring report’ to accompany the existing heat mortality monitoring report. 

Table 11: updates on plans for publications in mortality

Publication Organisation Consultation response Update
Alcohol-specific deaths in the UK ONS ONS will publish as a headline only release going forward. Headline only releases have been produced for the 2 releases published since the consultation.
Climate-related mortality, England and Wales ONS ONS is broadening this publication to extend the time period to 2023 and to consider other causes of death (for example, cardiovascular, respiratory) and demographic characteristics (for example, age, sex, deprivation). ONS will then consider similar developments for reporting heat and cold-related morbidity using hospital admissions data. ONS is extending the time period to include 1988 to 2024 and to consider selected underlying causes of death, demographic characteristics and sub-national geographies. Future plans include considering similar developments for reporting heat and cold related morbidity using hospital admissions data.
Deaths of care home residents, England and Wales ONS ONS will pause publishing these statistics until the required development work is completed. Once complete, ONS will continue to publish these statistics regularly. ONS will continue to publish statistics on deaths in care homes as part of the ‘Deaths registered weekly in England and Wales’ release. ONS will cease publishing these statistics. Deaths within care home settings will continue to be published as part of ONS weekly death statistics.
Deaths of homeless people in England and Wales ONS ONS will continue to publish ‘Deaths of homeless people in England and Wales’, but will undertake an improvement programme to provide more robust statistics to help better meet user needs. ONS is still exploring when the next homeless death statistics will be published and will announce a publication date when available.
Death registration summary statistics, England and Wales ONS ONS will merge the annual ‘Deaths registered in England and Wales’ output with ‘Death registration summary statistics, England and Wales’ and ‘Impact of registration delays on mortality statistics in England and Wales’. There will be 2 releases of the merged output. The first will contain both figures for death registrations in England and Wales and for the number of registered deaths without rates which will be published in April or May after the reporting year. Once population estimates become available later in the year, the release will be updated with mortality rates, likely in autumn annually. This autumn release will also include an additional dataset with registration delay data. This merge was implemented in the ‘Deaths registered in England and Wales’: 2023 release that was published in October 2024. This is now complete with the ‘Impact of registration delays on mortality statistics in England and Wales’ release merged into the Deaths registered in England and Wales: 2023. The number of registered deaths for 2024 without rates were published in May, with the mortality rates published in October as part of the Deaths registered in England and Wales: 2024 release.
Deaths registered by area of usual residence, UK ONS ONS will implement the merge for outputs ‘Deaths registered by area of usual residence, UK’ and ‘Vital statistics in the UK’ for the next release. ONS has not received many requests for this data since it was last published in February 2023. Therefore, this release will be discontinued and any requests for similar data in the future will be handled in line with ONS policy for requesting mortality data.
Deaths registered in England and Wales ONS ONS will merge the annual ‘Deaths registered in England and Wales’ output with ‘Death registration summary statistics, England and Wales’ and ‘Impact of registration delays on mortality statistics in England and Wales’. There will be 2 releases of the merged output. The first will contain both figures for death registrations in England and Wales and for the number of registered deaths without rates which will be published in April or May after the reporting year. Once population estimates become available later in the year, the release will be updated with mortality rates, likely in autumn. This autumn release will also include an additional dataset with registration delay data. This merge was implemented in the ‘Deaths registered in England and Wales’: 2023 release that was published in October 2024. This is now complete with the ‘Impact of registration delays on mortality statistics in England and Wales’ release merged into Deaths registered in England and Wales: 2023. The number of registered deaths for 2024 without rates were published in May with the mortality rates published in October as part of the Deaths registered in England and Wales: 2024 release.
Deaths registered weekly in England and Wales ONS ONS will initially keep ‘Deaths registered weekly in England and Wales’ as a headline only release. In the longer term, ONS will explore alternative ways of presenting this output such as dashboards. This release is now published as a dashboard rather than bulletin. This was implemented following a successful trial period. ONS has also added in additional breakdowns to the dataset on the median time to register deaths by, how the death is registered and a breakdown of deaths by deprivation.
Excess Mortality in England (formerly, Excess mortality in England and English regions) DHSC For this publication, the baseline period is now based on trends in mortality rates in the most recent 5 years, rather than the 5 years preceding the COVID-19 pandemic. DHSC is now also presenting estimates by month, rather than week, in the new, post-pandemic version of its excess mortality report. This report has been renamed ‘Excess Mortality in England’. Monthly age standardised rates were added to this report in November 2024.
Heat mortality monitoring report UKHSA UKHSA is exploring the implementation of additional geographical breakdowns in future reports, but due to the statistical uncertainty in estimating heat-associated deaths and the small numbers involved (fewer than 500 heat-associated deaths in each region in summer 2023), it is unlikely that UKHSA will be able to present data for a single year at local authority level. UKHSA implemented a new geographical breakdown in the latest heat mortality monitoring report on summer 2024, to provide data at the Local Resilience Forum area level for the first time. The report now includes breakdowns by sex, age, region, Local Resilience Forum, place of death and cause of death. The report and accompanying data tables were published as official statistics on 3 April 2025.
Impact of registration delays on mortality statistics in England and Wales ONS ONS will merge the annual ‘Deaths registered in England and Wales’ output with ‘Death registration summary statistics, England and Wales’ and ‘Impact of registration delays on mortality statistics in England and Wales’. There will be 2 releases of the merged output. The first will contain both figures for death registrations in England and Wales and for the number of registered deaths without rates which will be published in April or May after the reporting year. Once population estimates become available later in the year, the release will be updated with mortality rates, likely in autumn. This autumn release will also include an additional dataset with registration delay data. This merge was implemented in the ‘Deaths registered in England and Wales’: 2023 release that was published in October 2024. This is now complete. The ‘Impact of registration delays on mortality statistics in England and Wales’ release was merged into the deaths registered in England and Wales: 2023. The number of registered deaths for 2024 without rates were published in May 2025 with the mortality rates published in October 2025 as part of the deaths registered in England and Wales: 2024 release.
Mortality profile DHSC DHSC has already taken steps to increase the number of indicators included this profile, increasing the number of causes of deaths for which trends in mortality rates are now available. In February 2024, the profile was expanded to include 18 new indicators, 14 of which had previously been reported in either NHS England’s Mortality Compendium or DHSC’s ‘Wider impacts of COVID-19 on health (WICH) tool’. Some mortality indicators, which were reported in other DHSC profiles, have been brought into the ‘Mortality profile’. Data for Integrated Care Boards and NHS regions have been added and mortality rates for deprivation deciles based on lower super output areas are now available.
Quarterly suicide death registrations in England ONS ONS will publish as a headline only release rather than data only. ONS is now publishing this as headline only release.
Vital statistics in the UK: births, deaths and marriages ONS ONS will implement the merge for outputs ‘Deaths registered by area of usual residence’ and ‘Vital statistics in the UK’ for the next release. ONS has not received many requests for this data since it was last published in February 2023. This release will be discontinued and any requests for similar data in the future will be handled in line with ONS policy for requesting mortality data.
Winter mortality in England and Wales ONS ONS will complete a review of this publication and publish a proposal on the future of these statistics. ONS will now discontinue these statistics but will continue to publish excess death statistics which provide information on whether deaths over the winter period are higher or lower than would be expected.

Other publications in scope in the mortality topic area

There are no updates from the November 2024 consultation response to the following publications:

12. Obesity, physical activity and diet

Updates on plans for publications in this area are set out in table 12.

Table 12: updates on plans for publications in obesity, physical activity and diet

Publication Organisation Consultation response Update
Changes in the weight status of children between the first and final years of primary school DHSC No changes are planned for this publication. A new report was published on 1 April 2025 in the same style as previous reports: Changes in the body mass index (BMI) category of children between the first and final years of primary school, 2023 to 2024.
National Child Measurement Programme headline report DHSC The ‘National Child Measurement Programme headline report’, ‘Obesity profile’ and the ‘National Child Measurement Programme (NCMP): changes in the prevalence of child obesity’ will merge and this will take place over the next 2 years. The current individual reports using 2023 to 2024 NCMP data have been produced and were published at the same time on 5 November 2024. The 2024 to 2025 reports will be merged into one report DHSC will publish in autumn 2025. The 2024 to 2025 merged report was published on the 4 November 2025: National Child Measurement Programme 2024 to 2025 school year - accredited official statistics announcement.
National Child Measurement Programme (NCMP): changes in the prevalence of child obesity DHSC The ‘National Child Measurement Programme headline report’, ‘Obesity profile’ and the ‘National Child Measurement Programme (NCMP): changes in the prevalence of child obesity’ will merge and this will take place over the next 2 years. The current individual reports using 2023 to 2024 NCMP data have been produced and were published at the same time on 5 November 2024. The 2024 to 2025 reports will be merged into one report DHSC will publish in autumn 2025. The 2024 to 2025 merged report was published on 4 November 2025: National Child Measurement Programme 2024 to 2025 school year - accredited official statistics announcement.
National Diet and Nutrition Survey (NDNS) DHSC This survey is currently published every 4 years by DHSC but will move to an annual report which coincides with an increase in the sample size to deliver robust annual estimates. The first annual report is expected to be published in 2026. These changes were planned outside of this consultation. The National Diet and Nutrition Survey 2019 to 2023 was published on 11 June 2025. The next report will cover 2024 to 2025 and 2025 to 2026 NDNS data. It’s expected to be published in 2027, move to annual reporting for financial year 2026 to 2027 onwards.
Obesity profile DHSC The ‘National Child Measurement Programme headline report’, ‘Obesity profile’ and the ‘National Child Measurement Programme (NCMP): changes in the prevalence of child obesity’ will merge and this will take place over the next 2 years. The current individual reports using 2023 to 2024 NCMP data have been produced and were published at the same time on 5 November 2024. The 2024 to 2025 reports will be merged into one report DHSC will publish in autumn 2025. The ‘Physical activity data tool’ and ‘Obesity profile’ will merge and DHSC will consolidate the content to include important indicators on diet as well. Prior to the merger, further work to understand user need is required. Once this is carried out, DHSC will place a more detailed plan on the front pages of the obesity and physical activity profiles. The ‘Obesity profile’ and the ‘Physical activity data tool’ have been merged into the ‘Obesity, physical activity and nutrition profile’.
Physical activity data tool DHSC The ‘Physical activity data tool’ and ‘Obesity profile’ will merge and DHSC will consolidate the content to include important indicators on diet as well. Prior to the merger, further work to understand user need is required. Once this is carried out, DHSC will place a more detailed plan on the front pages of the obesity and physical activity profiles. The ‘Obesity profile’ and the ‘Physical activity data tool’ have been merged into the ‘Obesity, physical activity and nutrition profile’.

13. General health and social care outputs

In the consultation and November 2024 response, this section was previously titled ‘Overarching health and social care outputs.

Updates on plans for publications in this area are set out in table 13. Other publications that were in scope for this section, but where there is no update from the November 2024 consultation response, are listed after table 13.

Table 13: updates on plans for publications in general health and social care outputs

Publication Organisation Consultation response Update
Health Survey for England NHS England Fieldwork is underway for the 2024 ‘Health Survey for England’ which will be published in 2025. Given the size of this survey and range of outputs, it is being reviewed and discussed separately. NHS England will publish the outcome as a standalone web page linked to this. The data for the 2024 Health Survey for England is currently being analysed and due to be published early 2026. Fieldwork for the 2025 to 2026 survey is underway with results due in 2027. The survey is still being reviewed and discussed separately.
Local health DHSC DHSC will update the current indicators in the Fingertips tool with the latest timepoints once data is available and will close down the Geoclip tool. The Fingertips platform is being redeveloped. This will include the development of mapping capabilities and will aim to incorporate the most valued aspects of the functionality from Geoclip. The Geoclip tool closed in March 2025. Users have been redirected to the local health profile on Fingertips. An update of the local health profile was published in August 2025.
National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) technology appraisals in the NHS in England (Innovation Scorecard) NHSBSA NHSBSA published its first version of this publication in April 2024 and will continue to do so every 6 months. NHSBSA is working with NICE and NHS England to make sure the Innovation Scorecard is fit for purpose and meets user needs.
NHS Outcomes Framework indicators NHS England NHS England will publish the revised framework from winter 2024 to 2025 onwards. The revised publication will have an overarching web page with links to the data for each of the 5 HES based indicators, along with a data sources spreadsheet containing weblinks for the remaining indicators. This is the same format as the interim ‘NHS Outcomes Framework indicators’ published in April 2024. This proposal has been actioned and the revised framework for 2024 to 25 was published in February 2025. The NHS Outcomes Framework is currently under review due to the 10 Year Health Plan.
Public Health Outcomes Framework (PHOF) DHSC The indicators in the PHOF will be refreshed to remove those where the data is no-longer available, where a single year measure has replaced a 3-year measure and to make minor methods changes. The intention is to complete a separate review of the PHOF. DHSC will review the current set of indicators to take account of the government’s public health and prevention priorities. The frequency of the PHOF updates will reduce from 4 times per year to 3 to consolidate the update process. Indicators in the PHOF are being updated as part of the ongoing update schedule, now reduced to 3 times a year. A list of planned changes and the changes that have been made already is available on Fingertips. DHSC is reviewing the current set of indicators in the PHOF to take account of the government’s public health and prevention priorities. A consultation is planned once the review is complete.
Wider impacts of COVID-19 on health (WICH) tool DHSC DHSC will formally stop updates to the WICH tool. DHSC formally stopped updates to the WICH tool. Data files with extracts of the data currently presented in the WICH tool were added in June 2025. Users can still view the data in the WICH tool, but this is no longer being maintained or updated.
Productive healthy ageing profile DHSC DHSC will formally discontinue this profile. The productive healthy ageing profile was discontinued on 3 April 2025.

Other publications in scope in the health and social care outputs topic area

There are no updates from the November 2024 consultation response to the following publications:

14. Primary care, community and oral health

Updates on plans for publications in this area are set out in table 14. Other publications that were in scope for this section, but where there is no update from the November 2024 consultation response, are listed after table 14.

NHSBSA has conducted some user research with their users and will be taking this input onboard as they look to develop how they deliver their publications.

Table 14: updates on plans for publications in primary care, community and oral health

Publication Organisation Consultation response Update
Appointments in General Practice NHS England For this publication, NHS England will carry out a streamlining of the publication, reducing the number of data files each month from 90 to 21. NHS England will reduce timeseries from 30 months to 18 months on each monthly release, and publish all data at practice level, with mappings to allow for aggregation. This reduces the number of CSV files produced from 78 to 19. It will also include a single file showing the daily count of appointments at sub-ICB level, to replace the 30 current files. NHS England is working to migrate the data pipeline for this collection. New publication outputs are being developed in parallel to this, in line with those previously described in the consultation. Once the data pipeline has been successfully migrated, NHS England will begin to publish the new outputs.
Dental statistics - England NHSBSA NHSBSA will review signposting between publications and make improvements if needed. NHSBSA will continue to produce supporting statistical narratives to accompany its publications. NHSBSA will also look to introduce interactive dashboards to support its publications where this would maximise value for the user. For this publication, the NHSBSA will be aligning methodologies used to assign dental activity to a time period with the monthly management information published on the NHSBSA Open Data Portal. This will lead to greater coherence in dental reporting to allow greater scrutiny as we move towards system recovery. NHSBSA will be publishing a supporting statistical narrative with the publication. This will draw out important measures and provide context and analysis of trends in dental data. This will include measures across geographies and looking at patient centred measures. This publication now has 2 releases on the NHSBSA website and with accompanying statistical narratives. The expanded publication now also includes patient related analyses. NHSBSA has reviewed and made necessary improvements to signposting across our publications.
Dependency forming medicines - England NHSBSA NHSBSA will review signposting between publications and make improvements if needed. NHSBSA will continue to produce supporting statistical narratives to accompany its publications. NHSBSA will also look to introduce interactive dashboards to support its publications where this would maximise value for the user. NHSBSA has reviewed and made necessary improvements to signposting across our publications.
Fingertips ‘Dental services’ profile DHSC DHSC will explore which measures are helpful to include in the Fingertips ‘Dental services’ profile, and which measures will produce the most insight for users. Due to resource reductions, this tool is being withdrawn. Monthly dental performance data remains available on English Contractor Monthly General Dental Activity
Fit notes issued by GP practices, England NHS England NHS England will review caveats and supporting documentation to ensure they are as clear as possible on the limitations of the data. NHS England is working jointly with the DWP to review and update the supporting information for the Fit Notes data collection and publication.
General pharmaceutical services - England NHSBSA NHSBSA will review signposting between publications and make improvements if needed. NHSBSA will continue to produce supporting statistical narratives to accompany its publications. NHSBSA will also look to introduce interactive dashboards to support its publications where this would maximise value for the user. NHSBSA has reviewed and made necessary improvements to signposting across our publications.
GP patient survey NHS England NHS England brought dental reporting into ‘GP patient survey’ reporting outputs this year. NHS England will ensure the general practice and dentistry sections are presented separately and highlight the most important issues in accompanying narratives and bulletins. When NHS England next reviews the content of the GP patient survey, it will consult with a wide range of stakeholders before making any significant changes, in line with the engagement done during previous redevelopments of the survey. In order to maintain trends in the data, NHS England plans to avoid further significant redevelopments to the survey wherever possible over the next few years. General practice and dentistry sections were presented separately and highlighted the most important issues in accompanying narratives and bulletins in the 2024 and 2025 publications. This will continue in future publications.
GP profiles for patients DHSC No changes are planned for this publication. Production of this profile has ceased, and the tool has been removed from Fingertips. Data remains available on the following pages: General Practice Workforce, Primary Care Network Workforce, Primary Care Workforce Quarterly Update, Appointments in General Practice, and NHS Payments to General Practice
Health and care of people with learning disabilities NHS England No changes are planned for this publication. There are no changes planned for the upcoming publication in December 2025. For future publications NHS England is reviewing the data source which may impact certain measures and the ability to compare to the non-learning-disabled population. The full extent of potential implications of a change in data source is not yet known and will be further communicated.
Hormone replacement therapy - England NHSBSA NHSBSA will review signposting between publications and make improvements if needed. NHSBSA will continue to produce supporting statistical narratives to accompany its publications. NHSBSA will also look to introduce interactive dashboards to support its publications where this would maximise value for the user. NHSBSA has reviewed and made necessary improvements to signposting across our publications.
Hospital tooth extractions in 0 to 19 year olds DHSC No changes are planned for this publication. DHSC is aware of the data quality issues with this product so are planning a user engagement survey to assess how useful this product is to stakeholders
Medicines used in mental health - England NHSBSA NHSBSA will review signposting between publications and make improvements if needed. NHSBSA will continue to produce supporting statistical narratives to accompany its publications. NHSBSA will also look to introduce interactive dashboards to support its publications where this would maximise value for the user. NHSBSA has reviewed and made necessary improvements to signposting across our publications.
National general practice profiles DHSC No changes are planned for this publication. A partial update of this profile is planned for December 2025. There are no plans to update this profile again in its current form. However, DHSC is reviewing the future of indicators contained in this profile as part of the wider work to modernise the platform
Prescribing costs in hospitals and the community - England NHSBSA NHSBSA will review signposting between publications and make improvements if needed. NHSBSA will continue to produce supporting statistical narratives to accompany its publications. NHSBSA will also look to introduce interactive dashboards to support its publications where this would maximise value for the user. NHSBSA has reviewed and made necessary improvements to signposting across our publications.
Prescribing for diabetes - England NHSBSA NHSBSA will review signposting between publications and make improvements if needed. NHSBSA will continue to produce supporting statistical narratives to accompany its publications. NHSBSA will also look to introduce interactive dashboards to support its publications where this would maximise value for the user. NHSBSA has reviewed and made necessary improvements to signposting across our publications.
Prescription cost analysis - England NHSBSA NHSBSA will review signposting between publications and make improvements if needed. NHSBSA will continue to produce supporting statistical narratives to accompany its publications. NHSBSA will also look to introduce interactive dashboards to support its publications where this would maximise value for the user. NHSBSA has reviewed and made necessary improvements to signposting across our publications.

Other publications in scope in the primary care, community and oral health topic area

There are no updates from the November 2024 consultation response to the following publications:

15. Smoking, drugs and alcohol

Updates on plans for publications in this area are set out in table 15. Other publications that were in scope for this section, but where there is no update from the November 2024 consultation response, are listed after table 15.

Table 15: updates on plans for publications in smoking, drugs and alcohol

Publication Organisation Consultation response Update
Local alcohol profiles for England (LAPE) (renamed ‘Alcohol profile’) DHSC Further work to understand user need is required for this publication. Once this is carried out, DHSC will place a more detailed plan on the front page of the profile. DHSC carried out further stakeholder engagement by placing a proposal on the profile page and requesting feedback through a questionnaire. It is planned that changes will be implemented early in 2026.
Local tobacco control profiles (renamed ‘Smoking profile’) DHSC Further work to understand user need is required for this publication. Once this has been carried out, DHSC will place a more detailed plan on the front page of the profile. DHSC carried out further stakeholder engagement by placing a proposal on the profile page and requesting feedback through a questionnaire. It is planned that changes will be implemented early in 2026.
Statistics on public health, England NHS England NHS England actioned the proposal to remove charts that use DHSC data and continue to signpost to the DHSC Fingertips tool for ‘Statistics on public health’ within the 2022 to 2023 publication published in December 2023 as a pilot. NHS England will continue this in future publications. NHS England, DHSC and ONS will continue to work collaboratively to investigate the potential of more coherence in terms of publication dates and signposting to each other’s work, and whether any further duplication of work could be removed. A further consultation has been completed to make this publication fully signposted and redirect users to very similar datasets within DHSC and NHSBSA. The outcome of the consultation was published in November 2025 along with the 2025 publication in the new format at Statistics on Public Health, England 2025 - NHS England Digital.
Statistics on women’s smoking status at time of delivery: England NHS England NHS England will take forward and implement the proposal to change the data source for this publication from the Smoking at Time of Delivery (SATOD) to the Maternity Services Dataset (MSDS) from 2025 to 2026 onwards. This change has now been fully implemented. The first publication using the new data source was published in September 2025.

Other publications in scope in the smoking, drugs and alcohol topic area

There are no updates from the November 2024 consultation response to the following publications:

16. Urgent, emergency and acute care

Updates on plans for publications in this area are set out in table 16. Other publications that were in scope for this section, but where there is no update from the November 2024 consultation response are listed after table 16.

Table 16: updates on plans for publications in urgent, emergency and acute care

Publication Organisation Consultation response Update
A and E attendances and emergency admissions NHS England NHS England will improve the description of the scope of this publication on the website and improve signposting to linked publications. NHS England will explore opportunities to increase the content of the dataset, where appropriate. NHS England has improved explanation of the scope of monthly aggregate data, Emergency Care Dataset (ECDS) and Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) data. It has increased content of ECDS in the monthly publication with Frailty scores added in October 2024 and 4-hour performance for admitted and non-admitted and paediatrics added in October 2025. NHS England has published ECDS data at site level from October 2025.
Critical care bed capacity and urgent operations cancelled NHS England NHS England will discontinue this publication and improve the signposting to ‘Urgent and emergency care daily situation reports’ from the old critical care beds webpage. This action has been completed.
Hospital accident and emergency activity NHS England NHS England will improve signposting to the monthly A and E performance and activity publication in this publication This action has been completed.
Patient level activity and costing NHS England NHS England will discontinue this publication and merge the content with the ‘National cost collection for the NHS’ data publication. Patient level activity and costing publication has been discontinued and has not been merged with the ‘National cost collection for the NHS’ publication. However, the ‘National cost collection for the NHS’ will continue to be published.
Virtual ward capacity and occupancy NHS England There are no immediate changes planned for this publication. NHS England is currently developing a record-level national minimum dataset which, once implemented, would improve granularity in the data available to users. The development of the national minimum dataset data set is ongoing and will in time become the sole source of the Virtual Ward publication.

Other publications in scope in the urgent, emergency and acute care topic area

There are no updates from the November 2024 consultation response to the following publications:

17. Workforce and estates

Updates on plans for publications in this area are set out in table 17. Other publications that were in scope for this section, but where there is no update from the November 2024 consultation response, are listed after table 17.

Hospital and community health services (HCHS) workforce publications are now produced using reproducible analytical pipelines (RAP), which is an automatic analytical process.

This applies to the following publications:

  • NHS workforce statistics
  • NHS staff earnings estimates
  • NHS sickness absence rates

This means NHS England will be able to release all these publications earlier and monthly from January 2026. Where data was published 3 months after the event (4 months for sickness absence), it will now be published 2 months after the event (3 months for sickness absence).

Table 17: updates on plans for publications in workforce and estates

Publication Organisation Consultation response Update
Dental earnings and expenses estimates NHS England NHS England has reduced supporting commentary for this publication and simplified the timeseries and HTML publication. Updates were made to the most recent publication based on user feedback. Detail previously in the HTML content has been moved to the ‘Timeseries’ file to allow automation of its production.
General Practice Workforce NHS England NHS England will not merge the ‘General practice workforce’ and ‘Primary care network workforce’ publications or introduce rolling timeseries. NHS England will investigate the suggestion to include statistics on the uptake of retention schemes and data on the recruitment of newly qualified GPs. A new management information release has been developed and released using data from the Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme (ARRS) scheme which adds to intelligence on the GP workforce. Updates are planned to published analysis on GPs leaving training and joining the workforce.
General practitioner workforce in alternative settings NHS England NHS England will formally discontinue this publication. The series publication page will be updated by the end of 2024 to clarify that this series has been discontinued. This has been completed and a notice added to each publication page.
GP earnings and expenses estimates NHS England NHS England has reduced supporting commentary for this publication. NHS England will investigate including an ethnicity breakdown on the GP earnings analysis to further inform review body on Review Body on Doctors’ and Dentists’ Remuneration (DDRB) reviews. Updates were made to the most recent publication based on user feedback. Detail previously in the HTML content has been moved to the ‘Timeseries’ file to allow automation of its production. Ethnicity breakdowns were added in the most recent publication in August 2025.
Independent healthcare provider workforce statistics NHS England NHS England will re-consider the proposal to discontinue this publication and undertake a discovery exercise later in 2024 to 2025 with the aim of identifying ways of increasing participation, investigating the ability of NHS England to require provision of data, identify a different collection tool and identify the important areas stakeholders are interested in. A review is in progress which will set out what would need to be in place to collect and produce more complete and accurate statistics in this area.
NHS sickness absence rates NHS England NHS England has included links to sitrep reports within the related links section of this publication. NHS England will engage with colleagues who produce these reports and update commentary to explain how to use, if appropriate. The link to the sitrep data is now included in the publication, and information regarding it is provided in the data quality section.
NHS surplus land NHS England NHS England will not, as proposed, remove statistics that are based on the Trac and Electronic Staff Record (ESR) data from this publication This has been completed. The data quality report which was previously a PDF is now part of the HTML publication.
NHS workforce statistics NHS England NHS England will remove excel pivot tables but will continue to provide the underlying data in CSV format and within the bulletin tables. NHS England will retire the ‘Redundancies table’ from the ‘Reason for leaving’ series and retire ‘National time series in NHS and core orgs’ summary tables. NHS England will not, as proposed, reduce the ‘Equality and diversity in trust and core orgs’ to every 6 months. NHS England will also explore the feasibility of developing further metrics based on the feedback, and review definitions and data descriptions such as those relating to staff movement. Additionally, when the methodology and content of reports is revisited, NHS England will consider the statistics produced by the UK nations and align where possible or explain differences. Planned changes have been made. The review of turnover metrics is underway. Work continues with devolved administrations to highlight and explain similarities and differences. All publications will be released earlier from January 2026 due to automation of processes.
Patient-led assessments of the care environment (PLACE) NHS England NHS England will review and move the data quality information to HTML format on the release pages for this publication. In addition, the PowerPoint summary presentation will be removed and replaced with an interactive Power BI report. This has been completed. The data quality report which was previously a PDF is now part of the HTML publication. An interactive dashboard has been included.
Primary Care Network Workforce NHS England NHS England will not merge the ‘General practice workforce’ and ‘Primary care network workforce’ publications or introduce rolling timeseries. NHS England will investigate the suggestion to include statistics on the uptake of retention schemes and data on the recruitment of newly qualified GPs. A new management information release has been developed and now released using data from the ARRS scheme which adds to intelligence on the GP workforce. Updates are planned to published analysis on GPs leaving training and joining the workforce.

Other publications in scope in the workforce and estates topic area

There are no updates from the November 2024 consultation response to the following publications:

Future updates 

As we continue to review our statistical publications, there will likely be further changes to products. We will continue to communicate with users as we review and evolve our statistical products to meet priorities.

For further updates check individual publication pages. We always welcome ongoing user feedback on our releases. Use the contact details on individual publication webpages to share feedback.

If you have any queries, email statistics@dhsc.gov.uk.

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