Standard Tables for health areas CD Frequently Asked Questions
These Frequently Asked Questions are intended to assist you when using the Standard Tables for health areas in England and Wales CD released in March 2004. If your query is not resolved, contact details are provided below.
Users are advised to regularly review these Frequently Asked Questions which will be updated with details of any new issues as they become known.
Getting started How do I start using the CD?
Put the CD in your CD drive. It will start up automatically and you will be presented with a screen that asks you to accept or decline the ONS conditions of supply. After accepting the conditions you will be presented with a screen containing a number of buttons that allow you to browse the data on the CD, view information describing where to find files on the CD, and view background information about the CD and about the Census.
Does the CD run on an Apple Mac?
The facility to download and manipulate the data is not available to Mac users as SuperTABLE software cannot be installed on an Apple Mac.
Installation Do I have to install the contents of the CD on my computer?
No, the contents can be accessed with the CD in the CD drive but SuperTABLE must be installed from the CD. If you are connected to a network you may need to seek the assistance of your network administrator to install SuperTABLE.
I am encountering issues when attempting to install and use SuperTABLE. For example, either error messages appear at installation or, once installed using an administrators account, users cannot start the application when they logon and have insufficient authority to access the appropriate folders. Can ONS help?
There are a number of reasons why an install of SuperTABLE may fail or prove difficult, and administration privileges applied to PCs can impede installation. Unfortunately ONS is unable to provide technical support regarding the installation of SuperTABLE, but further information can be found at the manufacturer’s website in pages such as
HERE or by contacting support@str.com.au. Note that ONS has been informed by one customer that McAfee anti-virus software would not accept SuperTABLE. Disabling the virus check enabled them to install successfully.
Finding results How do I view the Census results?
Put the CD in your CD drive. It will start up automatically and you will be presented with a screen that asks you to accept or decline the Census conditions of supply. On accepting the conditions of supply you will be presented with a screen containing a number of buttons. The 'Find a SuperTABLE’ button opens a screen that allows you to select Census tables for health areas from a list. Clicking one of the table titles in the list will open that table. You must have installed the SuperTABLE software in order to view a table. Alternatively, another button provides information about where to find all of the tables on the disc, should you wish to copy the full set of tables onto a computer or network.
How do I find out what tables are on this CD, and what topics are covered?
A facility to browse a list of table titles is provided on the CD, and an Excel file titled 'st_health_table_index.xls’ located in the root of the disc allows you to search for tables by
keyword and topic.
I have located all of the table files in folders on the CD, and copied them onto my hard drive, but there do not seem to be files for tables S130, S131 and S132. Where are they?
Tables provided on the CD are similar to those for Local Authorities in the National report for England and Wales. However, following a review of the potential risk that information about workplaces in certain areas could be disclosed through Census tables on workplace populations, tables S130, S131 and S132 are not provided for health areas
on the CD.
I am using the six files on the CD for table T10. Some of them have data in the industry rows and some have these rows left blank. Why is this?
Tables provided in this product are similar to those for Local Authorities in the National report for England and Wales. However, following a review of the potential risk that information about workplaces in certain areas could be disclosed through Census tables on workplace populations, some of the files for T10 have the industry rows left blank. These rows have data included in the files for England and Wales, England, Wales, and Local Health Boards in Wales (which are equivalent to Unitary Authorities), but the data is not present in these rows for Strategic Health Authorities and Primary Care Trusts (and Care Trusts) in England.
Q.When I click on the links for some tables in the 'Find a SuperTABLE’ section I get another window with a further list of links. Why is this?
For technical reasons it was not possible to include the complete geography for some tables in a single SuperTABLE file. Tables relating to migration (S008-S010, S134, S135, S146, T33, and T34) and table T10 are split into six SuperTABLE files, each containing the table for a specified geography.
Using SuperTABLE How do I manipulate or download the Census results?
When you use the CD, a screen is available which enables you to select Census tables on the CD. To use this option you must first have installed SuperTABLE, and instructions for doing so are provided on the CD.
When I click on the links to tables in the 'Find a SuperTABLE’ section I am prompted to choose whether to open the file or save the file. Which should I choose?
To view the data when browsing the CD select the option to open the file. This will enable you to view the table using SuperTABLE. Saving the file will place the file in a folder on your PC.
Some footnotes are truncated when I copy files to other formats. What can I do about this?
Some Standard Table footnotes may be truncated when saving out from SuperTABLE into other data formats. A list of table titles and footnotes is provided in an Excel file called 'st_health_footnotes.xls’ which is located in the root of the CD.
Why does nothing happen when I click on table link in the ‘Find a SuperTABLE’ section?
To use this facility you must first have installed some software called 'SuperTABLE’, which is available on the CD. Advice on installing SuperTABLE is available on the CD. If you have already installed SuperTABLE it is possible that the install has not fully completed. This can be easily resolved by opening up SuperTABLE and then closing it.
When I click on the list of tables in 'Find a SuperTABLE’ nothing happens for up to a minute. Is there a fault?
The SuperTABLE files are very large and can take up to a minute to open.
How do I use SuperTABLE?
A Census specific tutorial is available from the Help option within the SuperTABLE application.
When I attempt to manipulate the data in SuperTABLE, for some tables the data seems to get mixed up. Why is this, and what can I do about it?
Due to the complexity of the construction of some tables, they can be viewed using SuperTABLE but there is a risk that reordering health area labels can result in the counts becoming corrupted. Care should therefore be taken when manipulating these files, and users of the CD may prefer to save the SuperTABLE files concerned to an alternative format prior to making such amendments.
Loading data into databases The data on the CD is in SuperTABLE format and is not suitable for loading into a database. In addition, the Save as CSV option does not produce a comma separated file that I can use for this purpose. Is the data available in other formats?
All the tables on the CD are also available in a CSV format specifically designed by ONS for loading into database systems, and can be obtained free of charge by contacting Census Customer Services (see contact details below).
I have received the CSV data from ONS and it includes area codes in the file. I need to know the names of these areas.
Information about names and codes is available HERE.
General I think that I have found some errors on the CD, how do I confirm this and find out if they have been corrected?
It is possible that some errors have been discovered on the CD since it was published. Any such errors will be noted in the Census product error log available HERE which is regularly updated. As well as explaining any errors, the log contains details of how the error has been corrected; how the corrected information can be obtained; and, where applicable, links to further information If the error log does not list the specific error you have found, please contact Census Customer Services using the contact details listed below.
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