Department of Health

Website of the Department of Health

Please note that this website has a UK government access keys system.

Statements of compliance

This page provides links to compliance arrangements with the National Statistics Code of Practice and with the Pre-release Access to Official Statistics Order 2008.

Department of Health statement of compliance with the Pre-release Access to Official Statistics Order 2008

This statement sets out the Department of Health’s operational arrangements for giving Ministers and their officials pre-release access to official statistics once they have attained their final form prior to publication.

Department of Health statement of compliance with the National Statistics Code of Practice

The Department of Health statement of compliance with the National Statistics Code of Practice was updated on 16 September 2008.  It covers current compliance arrangements for the Department of Health.  It will be updated again when the UK Statistics Authority publish a new Code of Practice, which is expected in January 2009.  In addition to the lists for Department of Health outputs below, lists of Information Centre for health and social care outputs is available on their website.

12 month statistical publication plan for DH

Disclosure issues

Disclosure Review

On 11 October 2006, the Office For National Statistics (ONS) published guidelines for interpreting the National Statistics Code of Practice and associated protocols in the handling of health statistics across the health community, in a way that balances data confidentiality risks with the public interest in the use of public figures.

Abortion statistics

In using and releasing health statistics there is a risk, generally with small numbers, of identifying individuals. On 27 July 2005 the Office of National Statistics (ONS) published an advisory report on disclosure guidance for abortion statistics. DH Ministers have accepted this advice from the National Statistician.

Pre-release access lists to DH statistics

The following lists detail officials who have pre-release access to DH statistical releases for purposes of Ministerial briefing.  These were reviewed in November 2008 with a view to reducing them in line with requirements from the UK Statistics Authority.  From 1 December 2008, new rules on pre-release access take effect and the publication of official statistics will be accompanied by a pre-release access list

Additional links

Information Centre for health and social care

UK Statistics Authority

UK Statistics Authority

Official UK statistics and information about statistics.

Access keys