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How monitoring can be used to improve
service delivery
John Kemm,Director, West Midlands Public Health Observatory,
Birmingham, UK
Abstract
All 15 West Midlands Stop Smoking Services provide anonymised information to the West Midlands Public Health Observatory for analysis. The services submit a minimum data set for each client. After data cleaning, the profile of clients (gender, age, ethnic group, PCT of residence, IMD score of area of residence) the treatments used and the outcome at 4 weeks are analysed. Use need: ratios (the proportion of the estimated number of smokers who attend as clients), 4 week quit rates and retention (percentage for whom smoking status is known at 4 weeks) are cross-tabulated by client characteristics. The results are fed back to the services and to their commissioning PCTs.
The work benefits services by improving accuracy of recording, assisting with extraction of information from systems, and providing an indication of their ability to tackle health inequalities and compare this with previous years. Services are also able to compare themselves with others in the region (only their own service is identified in comparison charts). Future planned developments are collection of data from a sample on one year quit status and data on occupational/socio-economic group.
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About the presenter
John Kemm is director of West Midlands Public Health Observatory. In common with his co-authors of this paper, he has a strong interest in implementing effective interventions to reduce the prevalence of smoking in the West Midlands.
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