Spotlight

Healthy life expectancy by national area deprivation, England and Wales

On 15 April, the ONS published a release detailing life expectancy and years expected to live in “good” health. It uses national indices of deprivation to measure socioeconomic inequalities between 2013-2015 and 2022-2024.

There is also a life expectancy quality and methods guide.

Data and release highlights

Healthcare expenditure, UK health accounts: 2024 and 2025

The ONS has released statistics on healthcare spending in the UK for 2024 and provisional high-level estimates of spending in 2025.

NHS acute (hospital) trust catchment populations

The NHS acute (hospital) trust catchment populations analytical resource was published in April 2026 as an official statistic. This marks a major refresh of a long‑standing Local Knowledge and Intelligence Service (LKIS) product that had not been updated since the COVID‑19 period.

The resource provides modelled estimates of the populations that use, or are likely to use, each acute trust in England.

Diabetes profile update: April 2026

The diabetes profile has been updated by the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID).

This profile provides an overview of data on type 1 and type 2 diabetes and associated risk factors and complications. It is set up to support comparisons between areas and over time for a range of data.

Prison leavers in substance misuse treatment: four-week outcomes

This analysis looks at the outcomes of prison leavers in England between August 2018 and December 2022 receiving substance misuse treatment.

It is taken from the Better Outcomes through Linked Data (BOLD) programme.

Estimated prevalence of severe mental illness in England

On Wednesday 8 April, OHID published their Estimated prevalence of severe mental illness in England report.

The report was published alongside the release of four new local area severe mental health (SMI) prevalence indicators in the adult mental health and wellbeing profile.

Things to note

Referral to Treatment (RTT) waiting list

NHS England has published an ‘explainer’ on unreported removals from the Referral to Treatment (RTT) waiting list, to help users better understand this feature of the data.

The release supports the NHS elective reform plan commitment to improving transparency of how elective waiting times are measured and reported. It also responds to a recommendation made in the Office for Statistics Regulation’s review of RTT statistics.

Provide feedback on UKHSA statistics

The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) is seeking feedback on two statistical publications. Users are encouraged to give comments on the Seasonal vaccine uptake statistics and Human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination coverage in adolescents in England statistics publications.

Provide feedback on ONS adult smoking habits statistics

For the next adult smoking habits in the UK release, the ONS will be changing the format of the datasets that are published alongside the bulletin. These may include combining Great Britain and England for the adult smoking habits and E-cigarette use datasets, including confidence intervals in each table alongside estimates and including the sample sizes for some of the back series.

The ONS would like to gather user feedback to understand how the datasets are used and what format changes would be beneficial for users.

Please contact health.data@ons.gov.uk with any questions or feedback on these changes by Tuesday 5 June.

Upcoming Health Statistics Users Group (HSUG) and Royal Statistical Society (RSS) webinar

On Wednesday 20 May, HSUG and RSS are hosting a webinar to discuss the statistical approaches used for monitoring the impact of climate on health.

Climate and Health: Data challenges, solutions and policy perspectives

On Monday 11 May, the Standards for Official Statistics on Climate Health (SOSCHI) team will be hosting a webinar exploring key data challenges and solutions in climate-health statistics, focusing on how improved statistics can support robust evidence generation and policy‑relevant insights.

The event will look into the SOSCHI Project, an internationally recognised initiative with United Nations (UN) endorsed methodologies.

Please complete the MS Form to register your interest. You will then receive an MS Teams link to join the call. If you have any questions, please email: climate.health@ons.gov.uk.

Upcoming releases

11 May

Child and infant mortality in England and Wales: 2024

Alcohol-specific deaths in the UK: registered in 2024

12 May

Child measurement programme (Wales): September 2024 to August 2025

13 May

Drug-related and drug-misuse deaths (in Northern Ireland) 2014-2024

14 May

Autism statistics (in England), April 2025 to March 2026 

15 May

Past and projected period and cohort life tables: 2024-based, 1981 to 2074, UK

26 May

Termination of pregnancy statistics (Scotland), year ending December 2025

27 May

Births in England and Wales: 2025

28 May

Influenza in the UK, annual epidemiological report: winter 2025 to 2026

Health and care statistics

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