Those of you in the Yorkshire & Humberside area involved in returns to the former SHA will be aware that we met recently at Huddersfield to try to share ways of providing information to Health Education YH as part of their 'Miranda' database project directly from SITS, rather than each HEI having to handle this in their own way.

As part of that meeting I was asked to speak to Andy Youell at HESA about the 'Data Landscape' project, to see whether or not the NHS data requirements were currently on their radar.

Andy has confirmed that this issue is definitely on their radar and that they have had a couple of meetings with Health Education England who are currently trying to get a handle on what data collections they have inherited (no mean feat in itself!). However, they are very keen to rationalise and standardise what they do (although this information does not yet seem to have filtered down to the regional bodies!). They are also very keen to be involved with the HESA project and have a member on the project board.

They are also currently looking at data definitions and standards and Andy is meeting again with them in the near future and is optimistic that they will come fully on board.

All this is just background to what is going on - now comes the bit where I need your feedback!!

One suggestion that came out of the Huddersfield meeting (thanks to Marian from York)was that one way of handling the data returns required would be for HESA to adopt a similar process to the ITT returns that those of us with Teacher Training courses currently undertake. This would, of course, mean that SITS would be required to provide an additional HESA return, but would mean that all those providing health education were being asked for the same information at the appropriate times.

Andy was interested in this suggestion but asked if I could do some 'sounding out' of other HEIS to see what their reaction might be to this suggestion. So, over to you guys - any comments/observations? You might want to discuss this with your nursing schools/faculties as I know that there is no single method used by HEIs to provide this info at the moment.

Happy for you to reply to me on or off-list and I will post a summary of responses.

Judith A Davison
ASIS Director

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