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02 Jul 2008

Hurrah! Health data latest: the lunatics have taken over the asylum

On closer inspection, the Power of Information work is gathering pace and getting quite exciting.

Nine years ago UpMyStreet founder Stef Magdalinski berated a baffled audience of civil servants at the GC99 Expo, telling them to “Give us your data” (Tom recalls him saying give us your f*cking data, but I don’t).

Now Richard Allan and others are getting to grips with the Power of Information work for Tom Watson, and finally meaningful amounts of data are coming available - see the Showusabetterway list here

Several exciting new datasets are being make widely available for the first time, including Neighbourhood Statistics from the ONS, Health care information, from NHS Choices, a list of all schools in England and Wales from the DCSF and the Official Notices from the London Gazette.

. Hang on. Healthy Choices data freely available on an API? Dr Foster, who are being lavishly paid to produce this and no doubt hoped to profit further from our NHS data, aren’t going to be best pleased. But then, it’s crown copyright, isnt it (which we always argued would be its downfall)?

So I guess the Cabinet Office can do what it wants, even up to and including doing the right thing (rather depending on the Dr Foster contract to which I’m not privy).

This raises the intriguing idea that Patient Opinion could hoover up as much Healthy Choices data as they want, and use their exemplary moderation skills and respect for patients and health workers to produce a more valuable service. Oh, and plus Patient Opinion won a New Statesman new media award this evening. Not a bad day at all for two of my favourite social entrepreneurs. And well deserved, after they’ve been hard at it for four years.

• Posted by William Heath on 02/07/08 at 8:46pm
• Categories · Power of Information
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