There has never been a tendency to cull GP registers as they are paid per person on them!
Better than when I worked in Herts from 1967-70. People went out and counted houses then multiplied by 3.1 to estimate populations!
Alison
Alison Macfarlane
Department of Midwifery and Child Health
City University London
20 Bartholomew Close
London EC1A 7QN
Phone (0) (44) 207 040 5832
Fax (0) (44) 207 040 5717
Email [log in to unmask]
-----Original Message-----
From: Paul Garcia [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 14 April 2009 10:35
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: QUERY: Accuracy of GP registration data.
Part of my job is to forecast local populations in Hertfordshire. I have developed a simple spreadsheet based method for doing this. I check it by forecasting the number of school aged pupils, and I am usually within 0.5% of the actual numbers as recorded in the Pupil Level Annual School Census (PLASC).
So I was surprised to discover that the number of 0 to 4 year olds recorded in the GP registration data for the year 2008 is 12% more than my model's forecast. When I looked back at the GP registrations for that age class in 2001, it was 6% more than the census count.
I have also noticed that the GP registration data tends to inflate over time, by about 6% since 2002 (that is, the number of children with birthdays in, say, 2002 is 6% higher in the end-of-2008 data than it was in the end-of-2002 data).
Has anyone else noticed this? Should I be getting into a panic about it?
=========
Best wishes
Dr Paul Garcia
Senior Property Review Officer (Demographics) RSS Campion Fellow
25221
01992555221
07721384649
=====================================
Hoc fama mihi cursum sinuosum secuta nuntiat
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