Accuracy and reliability

Overall accuracy

The publication for 2023 includes 97 municipalities. 97 municipalities have approved the entire report concerning the number of deliveries and submissions. 8 municipalities have not approved the legal sections.

The precision of the statistics might be affected by inadequate reports from the municipalities, where some municipalities have not reported data and have not approved all or part of the data.

Some municipalities have not attached legal sections to all assistive products, and the completion of this variable will therefore be incomplete in some cases. Further more the municipalities might attach legal sections to the assistive products differently and the municipalities might register the delivered assistive products differently. The assistive products that are reported might consequently differ between municipalities.

In connection with the municipalities changing system suppliers, it can be a challenge to combine data from the new and old system correctly. There may be a risk of repeat offenders/duplicates if assistive products are registered in both systems. Conversely, there may be a risk of non-registration if they are missing in both systems. Consequently the precision of the statistics might be affected.

Sampling error

Not relevant for these statistics.

Non-sampling error

There may be differences in which data the municipalities report to Statistics Denmark, and in how they register assistive products and process the data. There may therefore be differences in the municipalities' reporting of assistive products, which must be taken into account when comparing data between municipalities.

As per January 1st 2023, it became mandatory for all municipalities to report the legal section, where the municipalities indicate the legal section according to which the assistive product is granted. Not all municipalities have had a legal section added to the assistive product. Data in this variable may therefore be deficient. Statistics Denmark is continuously working to get legal sections attached to as many assistive products as possible.

An assistive product can further more be registered in different legal sections, even if it is the same product in question. An assistive product can be registered as a single product in one municipality, while in another municipality it is registered as several products. For example can four blocks for a bed be registered as four individual products or a pack of four.

Some municipalities cannot attach a legal section to the assistive product, since some cases already are closed. A case is, for example, closed when the assistive product has been returned, which means that the citizen no longer needs the product or that the citizen has died. The number of assistive products that lack a legal section will in future be smaller, as the closed cases are expected to have a section on them in the future.

Some municipalities have undergone a system change, which means that active cases that are migrated from the old system to the new one will not have a legal section attached. In order to attach a legal section to these reusable assistive products, the municipality must open each individual case and attach a legal section. This is a resource-intensive task and has not happened in all cases. The proportion of missing legal sections will continuously decrease, as a legal section will always be attached to the case in the new system.

In addition, some municipalities report assistive products with legal sections that are not part of the requirement specification. These assistive products are reported by some municipalities and in these cases will not have a section attached. In some cases, the municipalities may, for lack of a better option, attach one of the sections included in the set of values, even if this is not a correct section. In these cases, the legal section variable may also be incomplete or perhaps filled with the wrong section.

A few municipalities also report assistive products that are granted on the basis of regional agreements. These assistive products can therefore not be attached to a legal section in the value set and will lack a legal section specification. The municipalities may have reported this differently. It is not possible to identify these regional assistive products and remove them from the data.

Some municipalities report assistive products with fictitious HMI numbers, which are not included in the Social Service database. Here we are talking about both material aids, but also services such as flexible traffic and other services. These cannot be added to a legal section from the value set, but some municipalities have nevertheless chosen to attach section 112 to e.g. flex traffic. If a valid social security number is not attached to the assistive product, it is sorted out in data.

Some municipalities report assistive products with fictitious social security numbers. These are primarily used when the municipality makes the products available to, for example, schools or care homes without it being linked to a specific citizen. The institutions can thus hand out the assistive products themselves as needed. Legal sections will not always be attached to these assistive products. It differs from municipality to municipality as to whether they report assistive products with fictitious social security numbers. Social security numbers that are not valid will be unsorted in the data.

In connection with the municipalities changing system suppliers, data supplied from the old and new system must be processed and compiled into a single report for the municipality. It can be a challenge to combine data from the new and old system correctly. There may be a risk of repeat offenders/duplicates if aids are registered in both systems. Conversely, there may be a risk of non-registration if they are missing in both systems. System change can therefore cause uncertainty in data. During 2022 and 2023, four municipalities have changed systems.

In addition, a system supplier has updated its system, which has meant that in the new system it has been difficult to set the correct delivery dates and especially the correct submission dates.

In certain cases, the delivering and returning dates may be registered on dates that do not match the dates on which the assistive products were handed out or handed in. This can happen when the system is changed and where cleaning takes place in the depots.

It is generally expected that the systems used to register assistive products will increasingly use barcodes for registration. In the long run, this will minimize the risk of measurement errors.

Quality management

Statistics Denmark follows the recommendations on organisation and management of quality given in the Code of Practice for European Statistics (CoP) and the implementation guidelines given in the Quality Assurance Framework of the European Statistical System (QAF). A Working Group on Quality and a central quality assurance function have been established to continuously carry through control of products and processes.

Quality assurance

Statistics Denmark follows the principles in the Code of Practice for European Statistics (CoP) and uses the Quality Assurance Framework of the European Statistical System (QAF) for the implementation of the principles. This involves continuous decentralized and central control of products and processes based on documentation following international standards. The central quality assurance function reports to the Working Group on Quality. Reports include suggestions for improvement that are assessed, decided and subsequently implemented.

Quality assessment

The publication for 2023 includes 97 municipalities. 97 municipalities have approved the entire report concerning the number of deliveries and submissions. 8 municipalities have not approved the legal sections.

Some municipalities have not attached legal sections to all assistive products, and the completion of this variable will therefore be incomplete in some cases. In some cases some legal sections have not been attached to a assistive products at all and in other cases it might be uncertain weather the correct legal sections have been attached to the assistive products. The quality of the legal sections is assumed to be improved in the future.

When comparing municipalities on should be aware of the fact that the municipalities might register the assistive products differently. It might differ between municipalities after which legal sections the assistive products are granted. The assistive products that are included in data might differ when comparing municipalities and the assistive products might be attached to different legal sections.

The data concerning these statistics are relevant, current and available. The assistive products are unambiguously defined in the classification in The Danish Authority of Social Services' database. Data are published annually.

Data revision - policy

Statistics Denmark revises published figures in accordance with the Revision Policy for Statistics Denmark. The common procedures and principles of the Revision Policy are for some statistics supplemented by a specific revision practice.

Data revision practice

Any revisions of previously released data will, by the default, be made at each new release. Revisions occur because the municipalities have performed quality assurance on their data or Statistics Denmark has improved their data processing.