Digitised Diseases Making sense of health data, research and public health

Digitised Diseases

Making sense of health data, research and public health

Latest Articles

Certified Absence: Reading Britain's Fit-Note Data Without Overdiagnosing the Nation
Public Health Data

Certified Absence: Reading Britain's Fit-Note Data Without Overdiagnosing the Nation

Digitised fit-note records are now a substantial public data source, routinely cited in debates about work, welfare and illness. But a fit note is an administrative document, shaped by GP workload, employer practice and benefit rules, not a clean register of disease. This article sets out which claims the fit-note record can support in 2026, and which it quietly distorts.
The Bed That Isn't There: Reading the Data Behind NHS Virtual Wards
Digital Health & Devices

The Bed That Isn't There: Reading the Data Behind NHS Virtual Wards

Virtual wards move the observation of illness from a hospital bay into a living room, and with it the point at which data is created. This piece examines what remote-monitoring records capture, which patients quietly fall out of the feed, and why a stable dashboard is not the same thing as a stable patient.
Three Clocks, One Scan: Reading NHS Diagnostic Imaging Queues in 2026
Public Health Data

Three Clocks, One Scan: Reading NHS Diagnostic Imaging Queues in 2026

NHS imaging waiting-list figures compress a complex journey—referral, triage, appointment, report—into a single number. This guide explains how modality, referral route and community diagnostic centres shape the queue, and why the interval between referral and result deserves more attention than the headline count.
Counting Absence, Missing Cause: What NHS No-Show Records Actually Measure
Public Health Data

Counting Absence, Missing Cause: What NHS No-Show Records Actually Measure

Missed appointments are often framed as waste or patient failure. But NHS no-show figures are operational records shaped by definitions, digital systems and local circumstances. Read carefully, they can point towards access barriers rather than apathy.
The Unspecified Patient: What NHS R-Codes Reveal About Diagnostic Uncertainty
Public Health Data

The Unspecified Patient: What NHS R-Codes Reveal About Diagnostic Uncertainty

ICD-10 codes in the R00–R99 chapter are often read as a sign of medical mystery. In NHS hospital statistics and ONS mortality data, they more often record a familiar administrative and clinical reality: a patient needed a code before a firm diagnosis was available.
From Certificate to Statistic: A Reader’s Guide to UK Mortality Data
Public Health Data

From Certificate to Statistic: A Reader’s Guide to UK Mortality Data

Death certificates become public health statistics through a chain of clinical judgement, legal process and coding. This guide explains how cause-of-death data is produced in the UK, what underlying and contributing causes mean, and why mortality figures deserve careful reading rather than immediate conclusions.
Occupancy Is Not a Diagnosis: Reading NHS Winter Flow Data in 2026
Public Health Data

Occupancy Is Not a Diagnosis: Reading NHS Winter Flow Data in 2026

As winter 2026 approaches, NHS bed occupancy and discharge delays return to the headlines. But flow data are operational instruments, not a verdict on care. This analysis explains what the numbers record, where they mislead and how to read them with winter in mind.
The Report Is Not the Event: Reading Britain’s Yellow Card Signals Carefully
Public Health Data

The Report Is Not the Event: Reading Britain’s Yellow Card Signals Carefully

The MHRA Yellow Card scheme turns individual suspicions about medicines into a national safety signal. But a report is not a proven harm, and a rise in entries is not automatically a rise in disease. This guide explains how to read the data with the caution the system itself requires.
The Quiet Minority: Who Slips Out of the Record When Patients Refuse NHS Data Sharing
Digital Health & Devices

The Quiet Minority: Who Slips Out of the Record When Patients Refuse NHS Data Sharing

The national data opt-out is a right, and a small but consequential one. This deep dive examines who withholds their GP data, why missing records are rarely missing at random, and how researchers are trying to keep UK disease estimates honest without eroding the trust the system depends on.
Per Hundred Thousand What? How Denominators Decide the Shape of a Health Scare
Public Health Data

Per Hundred Thousand What? How Denominators Decide the Shape of a Health Scare

Most alarming UK health statistics are arithmetically correct and analytically shaky. This explainer unpicks incidence, prevalence, testing rates and population bases, and offers a five-question checklist for reading the next scare story with a cooler head.
Repeat by Repeat: What Britain's Prescription Ledger Says About Chronic Illness
Public Health Data

Repeat by Repeat: What Britain's Prescription Ledger Says About Chronic Illness

Open prescribing data offer one of the most granular views of long-term illness in the UK, but they record treatment rather than diagnosis. This guide explains how to read repeat prescriptions for statins, inhalers, antidepressants and diabetes drugs without mistaking the pharmacy ledger for a disease register.
Rare, Not Invisible: Inside the UK's Registries for Low-Prevalence Disease
Digital Health & Devices

Rare, Not Invisible: Inside the UK's Registries for Low-Prevalence Disease

Rare disease registries are among the UK's most ambitious attempts to make small patient populations visible to clinicians and researchers. They also expose hard questions about consent, standardisation, linkage and statistical disclosure—questions that determine whether the data can be trusted and used well.
Sewage as Sentinels: Reading Winter’s Respiratory Signals in UK Wastewater
Public Health Data

Sewage as Sentinels: Reading Winter’s Respiratory Signals in UK Wastewater

Wastewater sampling can detect influenza, RSV, norovirus and SARS-CoV-2 before clinical testing climbs—but a rising signal is not an outbreak. As the UK enters the 2026 winter respiratory season, we explain how sewage surveillance works, where interpretation falters, and how public-health teams decide when to act.
Beyond the Tick Box: How SNOMED Codes Turn a GP Appointment into Health Data
Digital Health & Devices

Beyond the Tick Box: How SNOMED Codes Turn a GP Appointment into Health Data

A routine GP consultation produces more than a narrative note. It generates structured codes, quality indicators and free text that can be extracted for research—if the data are good enough. This explainer traces how a ten-minute appointment becomes secondary-use health data, and where patients should look for the gaps.
Signals on the Wrist: Which Wearable Metrics Deserve a Place in the Consulting Room
Digital Health & Devices

Signals on the Wrist: Which Wearable Metrics Deserve a Place in the Consulting Room

Smartwatches now generate heart rhythms, oxygen levels, sleep scores and readiness indices by the hour. We separate the handful of measurements with genuine clinical traction from the ones that are, for now, consumer decoration — and explain how to raise a wearable finding without derailing a ten-minute appointment.
Reading a Postcode Like a Clinician: What Small-Area Health Data Can and Cannot Tell You
Public Health Data

Reading a Postcode Like a Clinician: What Small-Area Health Data Can and Cannot Tell You

Interactive maps of neighbourhood-level disease, deprivation and service use are now published in abundance. This sceptical field guide explains how to read them properly — why small numbers wobble, why registers are not populations, and which questions to ask before concluding anything about a postcode's health in 2026.
The Slide Goes Digital: What AI-Assisted Pathology Can—and Cannot—Tell Us About UK Disease
Pathology & AI

The Slide Goes Digital: What AI-Assisted Pathology Can—and Cannot—Tell Us About UK Disease

Digitised tissue samples and AI tools are moving from research laboratories into NHS pathology networks. The promise is faster, more consistent diagnosis; the reality is a work in progress, with evidence gaps, governance questions and a continuing need for human judgement.
Seven Signals in the Noise: Reading Britain’s Health Through Anonymised NHS Data in 2026
Public Health Data

Seven Signals in the Noise: Reading Britain’s Health Through Anonymised NHS Data in 2026

Anonymised NHS records are used to spot diabetes hotspots, track mental-health prescribing and plan services. This explainer sets out seven signals worth watching in 2026—and the safeguards and limits that shape what the numbers can reasonably tell us.