1. NHS Digital is the national information and technology provider for the health and care system. Our team of information analysis, technology and project management experts create, deliver and manage the crucial digital systems, services, products and standards upon which health and care professionals depend. During the 2016/17 financial year, NHS Digital published 292 statistical reports. Our vision is to harness the power of information and technology to make health and care better.
2. These results are statistically significant. This means that the differences between this year and last year are unlikely to be due to chance.
3. The survey took place for the seventh year in 2016-17, although as a result of changes to the eligible population in 2014-15 (as documented in the 2014-15 publication), it is not possible to make direct comparisons between data before 2014-15. Therefore, only comparisons to 2014-15 and 2015-16 are included in this report.
4. Comparisons to the previous year are not included in this press release where year on year changes are not statistically significant and could therefore be due to chance.
5. The base numbers in this report are rounded to the nearest five, with percentages rounded to one decimal place; the percentages given for each question may therefore not add up to 100 per cent. Where the report talks about the proportions reported by respondents, these have been calculated by weighting the response data with eligible population figures to estimate the proportion of the population who hold these views.
6. The references within this report to Activities of Daily Living are similar (but not an exact match) to the Care Act (2014) definitions: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2014/23/contents/enacted
7. These six activities of daily living all showed a statistically significant increase of between 0.7 and 1.3 percentage points. These activities are; getting in and out of a bed (or chair), self-feeding, dealing with finances and paperwork, bathing, getting dressed and using the toilet. The other two activities (getting around indoors, and washing face and hands) also saw increases.
8. As the questionnaire responses are estimates for the eligible population, numbers quoted in relation to these are rounded to the nearest 50. All estimated numbers are also available in the accompanying annex file.