<strong>Scotland Care System Level Needs</strong>

The purpose of this dashboard is to help provide an understanding of the population and it's health status within the area(s) of Scotland that you are interested in. The data included covers five categories:

1. Population - both current population figures and future projections
2. Health - insights into diseases including dementia, cancer incidence and causes of death
3. Deprivation - based the Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD)
4. Demographics - specifically, information on the ethnic and religious make-up of an area(s)
5. Care Network - GP Locations and Care Home info

All data is presented by your chosen Geography Level, unless otherwise stated (in the data card title). Neighbourhood is a level of geography comprised of Intermediate Zones (IZ for short) in Scotland. There are 1,279 Intermediate Zones in Scotland, each home to a population of between 2,500 - 6,000 household residents.

Where data is presented as a single point in time, the date is shown in the brackets within the title of the data visualisation.

This dashboard utilises different domain, geographic and temporal breakdowns while also taking credibility and robustness into account. Using validated data and informed forecasts, PopNAT provides the means to tell the story behind the data so we can better explain and understand the big picture.

1: Population Estimates and Projections

This section demonstrates the latest Population Estimates and Projections figures for the selected area(s). 'Estimates' are the most accurate view we have of the current population of an area, and 'Projections' are forecasts. Depending on the visualisation the data is expressed as either the 'actual' number of people in an area or the 'percentage' a particular cohort (e.g 65+) represents of the total population.

2: Health: Disease Prevalence and Causes of Death

This section focuses on the current health of the living local population across various domains, as a guide to future need. The Dementia Register data shows how many people are registered at a GP and have been added to the Dementia Register in a given year. The Cancer Incidence data shows how many people have been diagnosed with specific types of cancer in a given year. The Cause of Death data shows how many people have died of a specific cause in a given year. In all cases, data is derived from GP records, so should be of high accuracy, even at a very local level.

The xxx data contains information on the percentage of time spent between a hospital and a home or in a community setting in the last six months of life.

The core strengths of this approach are that it provides highly localised information, broken down by condition and adequately deals with changing demographics. The key challenge is estimating what proportion of these people require palliative care, and how far in the future. It is also limited in the forward range it can be used to forecast, as the data can only cover the timeframe from diagnosis to entering care.

3: Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD)

The Index of Multiple Deprivation, commonly known as the IMD, is the government's official measure of relative deprivation. The IMD ranks every small area (Data Zones or DZ for short) in the country, with 1 being the most deprived area. The overall ('Total') rank assigned to each area is a combination of scores across 7 domains of deprivation: Income Deprivation; Employment Deprivation; Education, Skills & Training Deprivation; Health Deprivation & Disability; Crime; Barriers to Housing & Services; Living Environment Deprivation. These scores are ranked, with 1 being the most deprived area.

To ensure the IMD data remains useful at a larger size geographies, we have assigned a percentile rank to each small area (DZ) in Scotland, based on their 'Total' IMD rank. For example... there are a total of 6,505 Data Zones in Scotland. The DZ with a 'Total' IMD Rank of 200 (i.e the 200th most deprived DZ in Scotland) is in the 3rd percentile - meaning it is more deprived that 97% of the other LSOAs in Scotland.

The areas have then been grouped into various bandings to indicate the level of deprivation within the chosen Study Area.

4: Demographics

The census is a survey that takes place every 10 years. It gives us the most accurate estimate of all the people and households in Scotland. The most recent Census took place in early 2022 and output data is being released gradually. Refer to the dates to see which data has been updated so far.

The persons providing unpaid care data shows the number of people looking after family members, friends, neighbours or others due to long-term physical or mental ill health or disability, or problems relating to old age. These respondents were asked how many hours per week they were providing unpaid care, and this is reflected in the data.

The data also shows a breakdown of ethnicity and religion within an area(s). This is shown here specifically for those over 65 year ages, as this is more relvant than using the whole population.

5: Care Network

This data point compiles a list of GP Practices located in the selected area(s). The data is provided with a practice name, postcode and number of patients registered at the practice.