Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics

Shaun Lintern has published lots of graphs and announcing in typical fashion that the NHS has more staff now than it ever has and a plug for Julie Bailey, even stating that it’s down to her. 

Of course these stats must be looked at to ensure they are factually correct.

Now, any analyst worth their salt knows the golden rule in presenting proper statistics such as these is to ensure that a year by year comparative study is carried out consisting of 12 months in each year. 
Shaun however made the classic schoolboy error and included an extra month, by starting with September and ending in October it distorts the figures.  So either he does not know his axis from his elbow or is deliberately trying to mislead the public.

Looking at the same source* and taking the figures from September 09 - September 13, we find a very different outcome;

Sept 09 -  307,749 nurses

Sept 10 – 309,139 nurses

Sept 11 – 306,346 nurses

Sept 12 – 305,060 nurses

Sept 13 – 307,692 nurses

So his claim that there is "an overall rise since 2009" is completely false. There are less nurses than in 2009 i.e. 57.

Now if we take like-for-like again using October 09 - October 13 we see that the number of nurses has fallen quite considerably;

Oct 09 - 352,887
Oct 10 - 353,678
Oct 11 - 350,825
Oct 12 - 348,831
Oct 13 - 351,221

1,666 less nurses than in 2009


Lies, damned lies, and statistics, is a phrase describing the persuasive power of numbers, particularly the use of statistics to bolster weak arguments.

Overall though what can’t be distorted is the fact that the amount of FTE nurses has dropped under this coalition government.

Statistics and pretty line charts are one thing but to fully appreciate their context one must also look at other factors in determining if we have enough nurses e.g. population growth (2009 = 51m; 2013= 56m) plus the increase in people aged 65+ increasing from 1 in 10 (2009)  to presently 1 in 6 of the population, birth rate etc.

Its easy to see from these figures that the coalition do not value the NHS, unlike Labour who from 1999 - 2009 increased the amount of nurses by *74,667 !

**UPDATE**

You may have seen the twitter debate between Shaun Lintern and I over his use and misinterpretation of the figures.  Shaun even produced a "right to reply" ....ahem... even the figures in that reply were wrong.  Once I pointed that out to him;

 his "right to reply" changed from this;

to this;

such was his hurry to rectify he left the cursor after the word "three" - hilarious !

So why the increase in nurses from September to October?  the answer is new intakes. The number of nurses have increased every autumn 2009/2013;

2009 = 1,447
2010 =    292
2011 =    787
2012 =  1,719
2013 =  2,076

So the *cough* "Francis Effect" *cough* amounts to 357 more A,E and G nurses!


To add insult to injury, Jeremy Hunt's article in the Telegraph also quotes the wrong figures;

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/nhs/10617243/Jeremy-Hunt-Why-the-NHS-is-crossing-the-Rubicon.html

did Shaun Lintern and Jeremy Hunt attend the same maths class or just share the same PR team?

* source http://www.hscic.gov.uk