How we map
Mapping process
Children’s services mapping follows an annual cycle of questionnaire design, data collection, analysis, reporting and review.
Voluntary exercise
The data collection is a voluntary exercise in which all local authorities, primary care trusts and other NHS trusts which provide child health or maternity services are invited to participate. Participation involves the completion of a series of questionnaires covering:
Provision and commissioning arrangements in organisations
Finance, including income sources, spend and budgets
Service descriptions, what they do, where and with what workforce
Formal performance measures collected for national inspection bodies
Progress in the development of Children's Trusts.
Registration
Participation begins with organisations being asked to nominate a senior member of staff to take responsibility for overseeing the mapping exercise. They register on the mapping website and receive a password giving access to their organisation's dataset. They can then structure the data collection to suit local circumstances, either completing the questionnaires themselves or delegating data entry to colleagues who may be more familiar with the information being requested.
Training
In October each year Mapping Leads and colleagues who they wish to involve in the mapping exercise are invited to attend regional training events which provide feedback on the findings of the previous exercise and an explanation of the exercise to come, drawing attention to changes that have been made in the data being collected. Training is also available on how the data and data tools can be used.
Data entry
All data is entered on-line in the 4 month period November to February. Throughout this time email and telephone support is available through the Durham Helpdesk. FAQs are developed in response to common questions asked. When data entry is completed, reports summarising the information mapped can be downloaded to facilitate checking.
Reporting
The mapping data is made available on the website in four formats:
- In publications, such as annual national summaries
- In preset reports which summarise findings around specific topics, organisations or localities
- In live tables which give access to the original data and use of a number of data analysis tools
- In service directories that give listings of services in text of map formats and can be customised to produce specialist directories of specific areas or topics of service provision.
Reports can also be run that show the data at local, regional and national levels and enable comparisons to be made between localities.
Evaluation and review
The Children’s Services Mapping Project is strongly committed to receiving feedback from its uses in order to ensure the exercise if fit for purpose and of value to the staff who submit the data as well as to its sponsors. To this end, an evaluation is carried out at the end of each data collection period and feedback received throughout the year is collated and reviewed. Workshops are also held with national policy leads to ensure the exercise is sensitive to changes in policy. As a result of the annual review, the data collection tools are reprogrammed prior to the launch of the autumn data collection.
Key characteristics of mapping
Key features of the mapping exercises are:
- On-line data collection with the site accessible at all times for data revision and update
- Annual data collection with last year's data migrated into the current year's data set avoiding unnecessary duplication in data inputting and building the accuracy of information
- Information collected at the level of individual services/teams to allow maximum flexibility for analysis
- Service provision linked to geography so that services and commissioning can be reported by PCT, LA and NHS trust
- Cumulative data collection supporting generation of trends tracking change each year
- Live reporting that is sensitive to revisions of data.
