A Guide to Public Health England’s Fingertips Datasets: Unlocking Insights
- Mark Price
- Mar 3
- 4 min read
Updated: Apr 22
In the dynamic landscape of UK healthcare, data plays a pivotal role in shaping strategies that improve patient outcomes, optimise NHS efficiencies, and drive innovation within the pharmaceutical industry. Public Health England’s (PHE) Fingertips platform, now part of the UK Health Security Agency, stands as a cornerstone for analysts seeking to harness the power of data. This interactive tool offers a wealth of public health data and indicators, serving as an invaluable resource for enhancing patient care, refining NHS strategies, and supporting pharmaceutical market access and marketing initiatives.
1. Understanding Fingertips: A Data Resource for Better Health Outcomes
Fingertips is a sophisticated, web-based platform designed to support health professionals, policymakers, and researchers by providing comprehensive insights into health trends, inequalities, and public health initiatives. It encompasses hundreds of health-related indicators across diverse domains, including disease prevalence, lifestyle factors, healthcare access, and socio-economic determinants of health. This resource empowers analysts to monitor health trends, identify disparities, and drive initiatives that prioritise patient and NHS needs.
2. Fingertips Data and Indicators: A Comprehensive Overview
The platform hosts over 200 health profiles grouped into several domains, including:
Health and Wellbeing: Data on overall health outcomes, life expectancy, and quality of life indicators.
Disease and Illness: Information on the prevalence and management of conditions such as cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, respiratory illnesses, and mental health issues.
Lifestyle Factors: Insights into behaviours impacting health, such as smoking, physical activity, alcohol consumption, and diet.
Health Inequalities: Data on disparities in health outcomes based on geography, deprivation levels, and demographic factors.
Wider Determinants of Health: Information on social, economic, and environmental factors influencing health, such as housing, employment, education, and air quality.
These profiles offer geographically explorable, up-to-date information, enabling researchers to identify regional variations in health outcomes and patterns across the country.
3. Leveraging Fingertips Data for Improved Patient and NHS Outcomes
Fingertips is a powerful tool for pharmaceutical companies aiming to enhance patient care and NHS efficiencies. Here’s how analysts can utilise Fingertips data effectively:
a. Enhancing Patient Care through Unmet Needs Identification
To improve patient outcomes, pharmaceutical companies must understand unmet needs within the patient population. Fingertips enables analysts to:
Analyse Disease Prevalence: By exploring disease profiles, analysts can identify regions with high prevalence rates for specific conditions, supporting the introduction of new therapies where there is significant need.
Assess Healthcare Access and Outcomes: Data on health outcomes and healthcare utilisation helps pinpoint areas with poor health outcomes or gaps in care, indicating opportunities for new therapies.
Evaluating health inequalities: Highlighting disparities in healthcare access and outcomes provides a basis for demonstrating the potential impact of new treatments, especially in disadvantaged areas.
b. Refining NHS Strategies through Data-Driven Insights
Fingertips offers insights that can enhance NHS strategies by aligning with public health priorities:
Targeted Regional Campaigns: By examining local health outcomes, pharmaceutical companies can design campaigns that address specific regional needs, such as targeting areas with high diabetes prevalence.
Behavioural and Lifestyle Data: Understanding lifestyle factors allows companies to align marketing efforts with NHS priorities, such as focusing on regions where high smoking rates correlate with increased heart disease incidence.
Health Inequality Messaging: Data on health inequalities enables companies to create messages that align with NHS goals of reducing health disparities, showing how products can help bridge care gaps.
c. Supporting Health Economic Models and Value Propositions
Pharmaceutical market access teams can develop health economic models and value propositions to demonstrate cost-effectiveness and impact:
Building Cost-Effectiveness Models: Data on healthcare usage can be used to model the economic burden of diseases, linking costs with the potential impact of new therapies.
Demonstrating Broader Impact: Wider determinants of health data can show how pharmaceutical products positively impact health outcomes and socio-economic factors, strengthening the case for NHS adoption.
4. Case Study: A Respiratory Drug Launch
Consider a case study where a pharmaceutical company plans to launch a new inhaler for asthma management:
Step 1: Identify High-Prevalence Regions: Using Fingertips, analysts map asthma prevalence rates, identifying regions with high rates and air pollution levels.
Step 2: Assess Healthcare Utilisation: Analysts review emergency hospital admissions for asthma and find elevated rates in high-prevalence regions, indicating a gap in effective management.
Step 3: Develop Targeted Campaigns: The company develops campaigns aimed at healthcare professionals, focusing on the inhaler's potential to reduce emergency admissions and emphasising regular inhaler use.
Step 4: Engage with Regional Health Authorities: Findings are presented to regional healthcare authorities, aligning the product launch with NHS priorities to improve uptake.
5. Practical Tips for New Analysts Using Fingertips
Navigating Fingertips can be overwhelming for new analysts. Here are some tips:
Familiarise Yourself with Health Profiles: Explore available profiles to align with your area of interest in therapy.
Use Geographic Visualisations: Utilise mapping tools to identify regional variations, which are crucial for market segmentation and targeting.
Combine Fingertips Data with Other Sources: Integrate multiple datasets for a holistic view of the healthcare landscape.
Keep Abreast of Updates: Regularly check for new data updates to ensure analysis is based on the latest information.
6. The Future of Fingertips: Empowering Pharmaceutical Analysts
Fingertips remains an essential tool for data-driven healthcare analysis in the UK. As pharmaceutical companies increasingly align products with NHS priorities and regional healthcare needs, platforms like Fingertips provide evidence to support strategic decision-making. At Eye4Health Ltd, we guide analysts in leveraging resources like Fingertips to optimise market access and marketing strategies, ensuring value based analysis meets NHS and patient needs.
Conclusion: Empower Your Analysis with Fingertips
Public Health England’s Fingertips platform is a treasure trove of health data, offering insights crucial for improving patient outcomes, optimising NHS strategies, and supporting pharmaceutical market access and marketing. At Eye4Health, we help analysts navigate this platform effectively, transforming data into actionable insights that drive success in the UK healthcare market.
Ready to explore how Fingertips can enhance your pharmaceutical strategies? Contact Eye4Health today to learn how we can support your data analysis and market access efforts.