Minutes of the 9th Department of Health / CSO Health Data Liaison Group (HDLG)
Meeting on 9th June 2025 @ 13:45 - 16:00
The 9th HDLG meeting was held as a hybrid meeting in the CSO, Ardee Road, and on Microsoft Teams on 9th June 2025. There were 47 attendees in total – 35 in person and 12 joined remotely.
- Paul Morrin, Assistant Director General, opened the meeting, welcomed members to this HDLG meeting and chaired the first half of the meeting.
- Muiris O’Connor, Assistant Secretary, Department of Health, introduced and chaired the second half of the HDLG meeting.
General Updates from DOH and CSO
- Paul introduced the team and outlined the CSO’s new Health and Social Cohesion Division.
- Tomás Kelly has developed an interactive tool with individual reports for each CHN, IHA and HSE Health Region. It can be found here, and feedback is encouraged: https://edprofiles.cso.ie/2022/health/
- The National Data Analysts Network (NDAN) was launched on Thursday, January 23rd, 2025, replacing the Formal Statistician Liaison Group (FSLG) meetings. Its goal is to improve data literacy across the civil service, and all are encouraged to join - email adc@cso.ie.
- A new Assistant Director General is being recruited who will be over the CSO’s Health and Social Cohesion Division. Therefore, this meeting will be Paul’s last HDLG as co-chair. We would like to thank him for all his work over the years.
- CSO’s Health Research Data Centre is available to provide access to the data collected by the CSO for health research purposes.
- Health Information Bill and European Health Data Space are still at the same point as the previous meeting of this group in October, due to the general election in November and delays in the Health Committee forming. The Bill is at final stages of approval.
- Big focus on productivity within the health service. A productivity dashboard has been developed and is due to be published shortly.
- HSE/DoH Data Systems working group is working well in facilitating access to the HSE data.
- DoH is engaging with private hospitals to improve data sharing for reporting to EU.
Item 1: Irish Health Survey
Sarah Crilly (Statistician, CSO) presented on the Irish Health Survey (IHS), which is the Irish version of the European Health Survey (EHS). It uses the same questions as the EHS to allow for time series analysis, but there is also scope to add additional questions that might be of interest to the health service. There was a discussion about linking the survey responses to PCRS to analyse service utilisation.
https://www.cso.ie/en/methods/surveybackgroundnotes/irishhealthsurveyihs/
Item 2: HSE Data Strategy
Tom Laffan (Chief Data and Analytics Officer, HSE) discussed the HSE Data Strategy which is in its final stages. Everyone should be asked for their PPSN when engaging with the health system. Paul highlighted the importance of collecting Eircode also.
Item 3: National Psychiatric Inpatient Reporting System (NPIRS)
Ena Lynn (Senior Researcher, HRB) took us through the NPIRS system which collects key data on activities of approved in-patient centres under the Mental Health Act. It contains demographic data on the patient, and details of the admission and discharge. This data is used to inform policy and research, and aid the planning and development of mental health in-patient services. NPIRS is ISSCOP certified as of June 2024.
Item 4: Medical Workforce Intelligence Report
Dr Bernadette Rock (Head of Research, Medical Council Ireland) and Dr Rachael Kelly (Research and Regulatory Data Insights Manager, Medical Council Ireland) gave us an overview of the Medical Council’s workforce data. They look after the register of doctors in Ireland. They also survey doctors to understand more about workload and training.
