Kent County Council has created a dataset that combines health and social care information for its population of 1.5m people. This has created what is, in effect, a real-life laboratory where they can test the effectiveness of different programmes and services.

What is it?

Kent has created one of the largest integrated data sets in health and social care (known as the KID), which it is using to conduct new types of analysis and test what works.

How does it work?

The data is being used to assess the impact of services by comparing outcomes of recipients with statistically similar people who didn’t receive the service.

For example, the KID was used to evaluate the impact of around 10,000 home safety visits carried out by Kent Fire and Rescue Service (KFRS) on A&E attendances originating from the home.

The KID created a comparison group at the individual level, against which to compare the number of A&E visits. The analysis suggested there was no significant difference in A&E visits between the two groups, though it should be noted that reducing A&E attendances was not the primary objective of the checks.

The data was also used to evaluate a pilot of a reconfigured GP practice, with additional services for people with long-term health conditions, for its impact on acute care usage.

What are the benefits?

As well as evaluating the impact of services in new ways, it is also possible to run further analysis to test which types of people a programme is most useful for, and where it will have limited impact, helping the council to prioritise which groups should receive certain interventions or services.

Eventually, Kent should be able to start to generate its own evidence of what works in terms of service design and policymaking.