Anyone read the summary from the British Social Attitudes 25th Report? Misused statistic? http://bit.ly/dZhg4H #nhsreform

Actual question: "How much choice do you think NHS patients should have about which hospital to go to if they need treatment?" #nhsreform

25.6% said "a great deal", 48.7% said "quite a lot", and 21.4% said "a little". There are also others here: http://bit.ly/huyzG2 #nhsreform

I think what they've done is add up people who said "a lot" and "a little" and gave an aggregate score. Not sure that's too good. #nhsreform

There are actually lots of NHS questions in the British Social Attitudes 25th Report. Go look at results! http://bit.ly/huyzG2 #nhsreform

The question "how much choice do you think NHS patients actually have..?" was answered "not at all" by 22.6%. A minority? #nhsreform

We're talking about "fixing" the final 20% to the detriment of the other 80%. Could be a good strategy, but not so sure. #nhsreform

The data is actually different for choice of hospitals and treatments, and for older and younger people. #nhsreform

Using that data (& DH sums) we get 95.7% say they want choice of hospital & 73.6% saying they think we have choice already. #nhsreform

@markhawker a minority think they have but want?

@amcunningham Unless they have output to SPSS I don't know the crosstabulation. Perhaps I do have access, somehow...

@markhawker the report's full of stats! Which one did you have in mind?

@mossford10 Have you seen this leaflet? http://bit.ly/dH5hqp It says 95%, which is the one on choice and hospitals. Just all added up. :)

I wonder if @bengoldacre has seen the evidence they're using about choice: British Social Attitudes 25th Report of 2,034 people. #nhsreform

Using that data (& DH sums) we get 94.7% say they want choice of treatment & 79.1% saying they think we have choice already. #nhsreform

Access to British Social Attitudes Information System is free, apparently. For anyone keen on getting hands on data. http://bit.ly/eQ4an3

Ah, shame. The British Social Attitudes Information System doesn't give me recent data, just the years prior to the one I want. #fail

I have the data, I think... #nhsreform

Ah, looks like it's actually from the BSA 2007. Is it too late to be looking at data? Probably.

Interesting. This data only represents about 50% of all people surveyed from the BSA 2007. Of the 4,124 surveyed 51% had missing data.

The data on #nhsreform also includes Scotland and Wales, if they've taken into account all of it.

I think @dhgovuk should hire me as their social researcher. I'd give the public valid figures!

Of those who thought we shouldn't have choice over hospitals, 41.8% actually said they did have choice of some kind. #nhsreform

Bit confused about this data because the online analysis tool and SPSS give me different numbers. Hmm.

@markhawker Has a weighting been applied that you're not able to replicate in SPSS? Or could one have been used you're unaware of?