Tackling inequalities across Sussex

New ways of accessing information about the local population is helping health and care leaders in Sussex make improvements for the future.

Improving how health and care services use digital technology and information is one of the key priorities for this year in Sussex, and a new system is helping leaders gain a better understanding of where improvements may be needed.

Sussex Integrated Dataset provides access to anonymised data about the population, helping health and care partners to plan and deliver targeted interventions at the local level.

SID integrates GP and secondary care datasets, and is integrating local authority data. That is extremely powerful.

Dr Bikram Raychaudhuri

Integrated datasets across health and social care will play an important role in improving health outcomes for the local population and reduce health inequalities by ensuring that the right services are available in the right areas for those who need them and that everyone who needs a service is aware that they can access it.

Identifying patterns and trends will assist with understanding patient journeys and identifying those may need further support. This can lead to improvements in prevention, care, treatment, and support well into the future.

“SID integrates GP and secondary care datasets, and is integrating local authority data. That is extremely powerful,” explains GP Bikram Raychaudhuri on SID’s ongoing potential as a tool to transform health inequalities across Sussex.

“The people we find it harder to reach tend to be in areas of deprivation. They’re the ones who don’t come in for checks and you need to make a special effort to reach out to them. The identification of deprivation on a system-wide level makes visible where more effort is needed,” he advises.

“At a surgery level, you should know the area of your village which is and is not affluent, which are people in council estates. You should theoretically know that people on that road may be not engaging people as much as maybe on this road. But to then extrapolate that upwards and make that visible and real on a system level, is where I would see SID doing that”.

The SID team has developed and deployed Health Inequality Dashboards addressing clinical areas including COPD and vaccinations, Severe Mental Illness and Physical Health Checks, Bowel, Breast and Cervical Cancer Screening and Hypertension. This functionality will allow clinicians to identify where help is needed the most for a particular health condition.

“When I looked at SID for Serious Mental Illness on the number of people in my Primary Care Network who have not had any health checks yet, I realised there are cohort of people who’ve not engaged at any time in the last 12- months,” Bikram highlights.

“You realise you need to do something to target them or figure out why they’re disengaging – so this will lead to real action.”

Find out more about the Sussex Integrated Dataset.