The Sutton Coldfield Health Index

Status: in development. There is no data to show yet, and we will not publish invented or placeholder figures. The first edition is expected once enough anonymised data has accumulated for every published statistic to describe a group of at least 20 people. Until then, this page is a statement of intent and method.

An anonymised, aggregate-only view of local health

The Index will describe patterns across the community we serve — for example how a common marker like vitamin D varies through the seasons, or how cholesterol trends across age bands — using results from tests that patients have consented to. Where useful, we will set our local picture alongside published national comparators.

It is not about any individual. It will never contain a name, a date of birth, a contact detail or a single person's result. Every figure is a summary of a group.

Because transparency is a public good

Good local health information is scarce, and a clinic that tests thousands of people each year is in a position to contribute something genuinely useful to the place it serves — carefully, and with consent. Publishing it openly is a civic act: a citable resource for residents, GPs, journalists and researchers.

It also holds us to a high standard. Publishing our method in advance means you can judge the project by how it's built, not by how it's marketed.

Privacy is the design, not an afterthought

• Consent first. Only results from patients who have consented to their anonymised data being used this way are ever included.
• Aggregate only. We report group summaries — a typical value and the normal spread around it — never any individual's result.
• k-anonymity, k ≥ 20. No statistic is published unless it describes at least 20 people. Groups smaller than that are simply left out — never estimated, never rounded up from a handful of tests. A whole marker is withheld until there is a solid body of results behind it.
• No identifiers, ever. The published data carries no names, no dates of birth, no contact details and no record IDs — only a marker, a time period, a broad age band, and the group summary.
• Clinician-authored. Every edition is written and reviewed by a named clinician (led by Dr Greg Spencer), so the numbers are interpreted responsibly and in context — not presented as bare data to be misread.
• Data-protection assured. The project proceeds only after a formal Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA) is signed off. Special-category health data is treated as such under UK GDPR throughout.

In plain terms: if a figure could ever point back to a person, it doesn't get published. That rule comes before everything else.

Tell us you'd like to see the first edition

Leave your email and we'll let you know when the first Sutton Coldfield Health Index is published. We won't ask for any health information on this form — just where to send the news.

A note on emergencies: The Vesey is not an emergency service, and the Health Index is a community-information project, not medical advice. In a medical emergency, always call 999. For urgent medical advice when it's not an emergency, call NHS 111.