Dr. Paul Kavanagh:

I would be happy to start with some comments and I might hand over to my colleague, Dr. Mack, as well. We are really pleased the committee responded to that recommendation in the submission for a shared island public health dataset. The example the Deputy spoke about relates to healthcare. Our focus is on public health, which would of course include a concern around data in relation to people using healthcare services but is much broader in terms of understanding the occurrence of disease and looking at health and well-being and other indicators.

In terms of developing an all-island public health dataset I would step out three considerations that would be important. We would be very happy to follow up further information around all of this. There are technical considerations in terms of the infrastructure used to gather data. A lot of the data that would populate an all-island public health dataset would be secondary data from existing data collection systems, including healthcare data collection. There would be technical considerations in establishing an all-island public health dataset.

There would also be considerations around data standards and legislation. It would be important to ensure that, across the island, people are working to common standards in terms of data definitions. For example, taking the case of cancer care that Deputy Crowe spoke about, when we are talking about the number of cases of a particular type of cancer North and South we need to be speaking the same language. We need to look at standards, and legislation would be the second step.

The final step, and I think there is a real opportunity here for the IPH to build on its legacy, is around leadership and governance to ensure there is co-ordination, and that the data that is collected is not just gathering dust or something that is nice to look at but is actively being used in the pursuit of improving health across the island and trying to reduce health inequalities. The institute has a legacy and track record of providing that leadership and governance to not just ensure there is co-ordination around the use of data and evidence, but that it is being leveraged to build better policies to improve health across the island.