The detailed Standard Tables are now available for each Primary Care Trust (PCT) and Strategic Health Authority (SHA) in England, and for Local Health Boards in Wales. These relate to the population of each area as a whole, and add considerable detail to the Key Statistics released in July 2003 and the Census Area Statistics released in December 2003.

On CD

The Standard Tables for health areas are available on a CD for England and Wales as a whole on request from Census Customer Services in either SuperTABLE or CSV format without charge under Census Access terms. More information about use of the CD may be found in the Frequently Asked Questions.

The boundaries of the areas are as at 31 December 2002 in line with the National Statistics policy on the harmonisation of boundary change, and outlines of the Standard Tables are available HERE.

Differences between Key Statistics and Standard Tables Information issued 27 April
Figures in the Standard Tables for some PCTs may differ from those in the Key Statistics. This occurs where the PCTs comprise of wards which were not legally in existence on 31 December 2002. Exact figures were not produced for these PCTs to avoid the risk that confidential Census information about people might be deduced by comparing standard sets of statistics for overlapping areas.

The method of building appropriate figures differed between the Key Statistics and Standard Tables because there are higher minimum populations, or confidentiality thresholds, for the release of the more detailed Standard Tables than for the simpler Key Statistics. For the affected PCTs, Output Areas - the smallest building brick for which Key Statistics are released - where fitted to the PCT boundaries for the production of Key Statistics so that these were as precise as possible. But larger building bricks - the 31 December 2002 wards - were fitted to the PCT boundaries for the production of Standard Tables. This often resulted in a difference between the two 'best fit' geographical definitions. The use of these standard building bricks avoids the disclosure risk arising from overlapping areas. A list of the 85 PCTs where geographical definitions are best fitted is HERE.

Results on the industry and occupations of people with workplaces in health areas have been omitted from the Standard Tables following a review of disclosure risks [more information...], although other results on the workplace population are included. This is to remove the possibility of deducing figures for industry and occupation for parts of local authorities where overlapped by health authorities.

This page last revised: 27 April 2004