Recommendations

• A very useful session

Key Learning Points

• How to plan the presentation 

• Thoroughly enjoyed the vast insight and knowledge that John and Huw provided on this course. 

• The key learning points for me, were understanding how to fully prepare compiling and delivering a presentation, knowing your audience, the points that you want to put across and the action that you want to happen afterwards. 

• Presentation tips Fun, interesting and innovative. so much information was delivered in a short time, however it was beneficial overall 

• The structure of a presentation. 

• Preparation. 

• How to present data in a relevant way without compromising the message 

The most beneficial aspect of the event

• Quality of tutors 

• The group interaction 

• The humour that the tutors brought 

• The tutors clearly knew what they were talking about and explained everything in a manner which could be understood by everyone whilst also engaging us in conversation and having us interact with one another. This meant that we were all able to share our thoughts, ideas, questions and examples. 

• The material on the slides was clear, concise and to the point. Consolidation of skills Understanding of different type of data types. 

• The practical workshops. 

• Learning about categorical and continuous data 

Other Comments

• Very happy with my experience on this particular course and I have learnt a lot of tools and techniques that I will apply in my day job. 

• I hope to see John and Huw delivering more training courses via the Skills Development Network in the future. 

• Very information and enjoyable course 

• Fun, concise and engaging

• The best part was the exercises and discussions

• I don't think anything could have been done better

• Surprised about doing averages, as initially thought it was quite basic, but far more useful than expected.

• As discussed within the training, it’s not always about the best way to present/analyse, it’s often about what the higher-ups ask for.

• More star trek jokes, please. 

• The ‘penny drop’ moment around incidence vs prevalence. The examples given and described were very illustrative. Also the section around the P value and what it indicates. Very well put across.

• Difficult to get people to engage remotely when asked to discuss a list of items. Possibly something more structured so it’s not always the same people who contribute?

• Very disappointed to have missed the end. Will be looking to join other sessions in the future.

• The best part of the session was learning about exponential smoothing techniques.

• Please could we have training on more advanced forecasting methods, such as ARIMA and dynamic regression models

• Thanks again

• Thanks again for the training last week, I found it very useful! 

• Interesting, useful and easy to understand

• The whole course was very useful as I didn’t know much about SPC before. I now know what SPC is used for (understanding the process, improvement), rules for special causes, how to create an X-mR chart (and the assumptions), when to change limits and how to calculate capability (and realising that some processes just might not be able to hit the target so monitoring against the target isn’t particularly useful in those cases)!

• Would have been useful to spend a bit more time on Capability at the end as we ran out of time slightly.

• Thanks again for another valuable session.

• Useful for anyone new to SPC or wants to understand where/how SPC charts are best used. 

• When SPC should be used / or not and Capability (Cpk) were new to me

• Capability of a process was particularly interesting and new to me (Cpk formulae). Understanding how SPC is calculated and when it can be used.

• There was a lot of content to go through in a half a day – perhaps a longer session?

• A very useful session delivered well – this will help me better understand the use of SPC charts. Capacity (Cpk) formulae is a real bonus too. 

• Thanks for another informative and useful course 

• Got me thinking about how I view data that people are currently asking to be forecast and made me think realistically about what we can do in terms of how far into the future we can reasonably forecast.

• Just one small thing. Please could there be a few slides that visually explains the Data Analysis – Regression tool and the Solver tool, in terms of what data should be inputted where. I felt the online demos went too quick and could do with a reference to refer back to when using again in the future to make sure I’m putting the correct data into these tools.

• Thanks for a really good course.

• Interesting, well-structured and hands-on

• Very likely to recommend to colleagues if their work involves forecasting. 

• The first half day was familiar but the second half day was all new 

• The exercises/tasks helped with knowing how to apply the techniques and making the training actionable

• This was a really good overview course. I particularly liked the way that the problem with each method served as the motivation for the next one.

• It must be a bit of a nightmare trying to deliver these online but I think the exercises and the interactive elements were helpful in that sense.

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• A comprehensive course that focused on when to use the graphs as much as how to use them.

• Thank you for the SPC course yesterday. I would certainly recommend it to colleagues.  I’ve been reflecting on the course and how I could apply it in my own work today.

• I will recommend this course. 

• The content did not match all expectations. However, often exceeded expectations too. 

• Pleased it went further than NHSE/I presentations. 

• I feel confident that I could produce and appropriately use SPC charts. 

• Presenter was very engaging and very knowledgeable too

• Discussion of common and special cause variation was useful and how need to action each differently. What to do with SPC charts when special cause variation identified.  Additionally, liked the section on Capability. Pitched at a good level throughout and a pleasing level of interaction.

• Maybe specific examples of common cause and special cause variation could be given at each section.

• Maybe have a discussion of what a “process” is and some wide-ranging examples. And some examples of what a process isn’t, where SPC is less useful.

• Maybe it’s another course, or another hour on this one(?), but maybe something on the funnel plots when comparing organisations with each other, in contrast to one organisation over time?

• A very informative and balanced course on SPC. Thank you.

• Good to have an explanation of actual calculation of preferred SPC method

• Background explanation was helpful but perhaps too drawn out. 

• I do realise how difficult it can be to get hold clearly evidenced examples, but some case studies could illustrate exactly those difficulties and help us to be realistic about expectations, and to plan better to obtain evidence of outcomes. 

• If we had more time for questions at the end I would liked to ask about the statistics – but I have statisticians or at least mathematicians in our team I could ask, so this is not a big issue.

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• Thankyou for a really interesting and useful session.

• It was a good foundation but I was expecting more on predictive ‘modelling’. This was my misunderstanding rather than an issue with the course though.

• I thought the pace was decent (though I felt I could have done with a little more pace personally) 

• Good to have worked examples and the chance to work through examples ourselves. So important to consolidate understanding.

• Weirdly I felt I got more out of day 1 as I am not sure the further refinement of methods added much more usability i.e. either the basic would likely do or I need to be on different course for more advanced models and methods. The middle ground felt less likely that I would use it. Remains to be seen though 

• Thanks very much for the training course on Monday. All really useful and I’m looking forward to using the skills I learned.

• The exercises were absolutely vital to help with the learning

• It feels very intense online. It also felt like it was a full day crammed into 4 hours, which is probably what it was…

• Useful, well paced and interesting

• Accessible to a wide range of knowledge levels, useful content that can easily be applied to analytical roles. 

• The course content exceeded my expectations. I am not a fan of ‘soft skills’ courses, preferring to develop directly usable techniques. This course offered that.

• Most, but not all of the information was new to me. I think the content coverage was good and those areas where I had previous knowledge were necessary to the course as the people attending have different backgrounds 

• I feel the content was very useful and will help considerably in my analytical role. All of the techniques taught are transferable. Remote courses are always challenging, I thought the presenter did particularly well at delivering the content at a reasonable pace, discussing topics with those individuals who had questions and sticking well to the schedule. I appreciate that as a presenter it must be difficult to talk for several hours without being able to see the reactions of the students in the class. The combination of practical tasks and taught sections was about right for me. 

•  I found the more complicated exponential techniques interesting and most appropriate to my current work. 

• I was very happy with the course, but many of the equations used non-standard notations, making them more difficult to follow. Coming from a physics background I’m quite used to standard formula notations, so found I had to keep referring-back to figure out what all the characters were referring to.

• Overall, I found the course very useful and would definitely recommend. It would be useful if future courses had both sessions at the same time of day to help with availability (unfortunately I had to work alongside some of the course). The range of days offered was good though.

• Good to be able to apply the concepts which were being taught, using practical examples

• I get a bit head fumbled every time I see an equation, so, I like to see the terms in Algebraic equations defined every time I have to use an equation, That’s my issue, but I need all the help I can get…!

• This course (Introduction to Forecasting) has more exercises than the other courses I have attended. It helped with my focus for the whole 4 hour session.

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• It was interesting, at the right level and honest (i.e. sophisticated ways of forecasting usually not worthwhile)

• The best part of the session was using the techniques for myself

• The last part was a bit rushed due to time constraints – maybe there was slightly too much material for the time available

• Clear, helpful and concise

• The second part of the session was the best part where we saw SPC charts being built with their methodology

• Upper and lower limits calculations could have been explained earlier in the session

• Would recommend to colleagues who have either used SPC charts before or are complete beginners! 

• Learnt everything I wanted to know 

• Nearly all new information regarding SPC charts never used or seen them before joining the NHS 7 months ago

• Goes alongside the campaigns to use more SPC charts and will definitely be using my knowledge to create/interpret SPC charts in the future

• John made it simple and clear 

• The best part was realising SPC charts aren’t as complex as I thought!

• Just thank you again for a great course, I’ll keep an eye out for any more

• Will definitely recommend to other colleagues

• Having been on a previous course with John, expectations were high and expectations were met

• I knew about SPC , but it was explained in further detail

• Can definitely apply the learning from the the course to everyday 

• The presenter was professionally engaging with an underlying level of sarcasm and humour. Perfect. 

• Good to understand statistical process control as a presentation tool

• Would have been nice to have an exercise to do

• Thanks for a useful session

• Insightful, professional and engaging

• I really liked that you went back to basics and went through the data types and how that determines analysis and statistical test types. I never knew that.

• Obviously face to face training would be better but given the pandemic you did the best you could.

• The training was great and I am looking forward to the next series.

• The best part was learning about when to use each statistical test for the type of data you have got.

• I think everything was done very well.

• Insightful, useful and clear

• The best part was the tables and exercises which helped define which statistical process to use and why.

• Really helpful and insightful training course with a great engaging trainer.

• Quite likely to recommend this course to colleagues, especially for total beginners to stats 

• It gave me the basic information I wanted about different statistical tests and when to use them

• Quite a lot of new info, but also revisited information I already knew but the course put it into context

• If I wanted to progress as an analyst, I would probably put a lot of the learning into action.

• John was an interesting and motivational speaker and clearly had a lot of knowledge to share 

• The best part of the session was working through the examples together to understand the type of data we were being presented with in the scenarios and then determining the relevant statistical test to use.

• Just to say thanks very much John – a really useful introduction to statistics.

• I found it really helpful - thank you!

• Effective, interesting and helpful

• Thought there would be more on certain topics but glad a decent amount of time was spent on the basics as it now makes more sense 

• Knew a lot of it already but refreshed my knowledge and learnt some new things too

• Have already used some of the statistical methods talked about and will definitely be using in the future

• Didn’t feel like an 8 hour course, good that he asks plenty of questions, can tell it would be a good course to take in person to have discussions 

• It was tailored to NHS colleagues and data/John has worked for NHS before. A lot of courses I have done are very general and don’t allow me to make connections between what I’m learning and how I could apply it day to day but this one did. I could see exactly how what I was learning would be useful.

• Definitely recommend to colleagues, really well put together presentation. 

• My expectations were to be able to apply my learning from the course to everyday work, and that is exactly what the course did 

• A fair amount of it was new to me. I thought that my accountancy exams or my BSc degree would have helped, but not really!

•  John was very knowledgeable and confident in his subject field. And personable, with little hints of humour, which is needed on a 4hr course! 

• The questions from John, enabled me to stay engaged with the session. And the worked through examples were useful , they also changed the tempo of the training, again helping with engagement 

• I found the second session on Inferential Statistics, which was on a Friday afternoon, really hard to stay focussed. It is a more complicated session, perhaps not ideal for the last day of the week.

• Liked the anecdotal nature of the delivery, trainers obviously have extensive experience and they presented in an informal story style delivery based on their experience.  I will be creating a formal questionnaire based on some of the course content to use in my projects and its clear I need to do some further study on data type’s and structures

• I’m not keen on ice breakers, prefer standard introductions and quick round robin by participants, but that’s just my preference, nothing wrong with the approach used by Huw and John

• Presenters were good at giving real life examples, also of bad practice and the rational why people continue to use it, some of the examples were thought provoking

• It would be good to make it longer; maybe provide some useful training material/websites we can continue to explore after the course.

• Thought the use of MS Teams worked really well, might be an issue if you had poor internet bandwidth, this caused a slight issue for me when my son started playing on his PlayStation, fortunately, easily resolved

• It gave me a few very useful insights, Huw and John were great and made the time past quickly, too quickly! Enjoyed the session a great deal

• Just like to say thank you , really appreciate the opportunity to attend the course ....

• Going back to basics in terms of data and analysis was great to give that reminder that understanding the fundamentals does and should impact any subsequent analysis and also that sometimes the simple analysis is the best (all dependent on context!). Also found it very useful to take away some new tips and tricks in terms of communicating effectively with more ‘demanding’ customers.

• Answering the who, what, why, when… questions was incredibly useful but it would have been even more useful to cover them all at the same time. I would personally not contribute to some sections e.g. a how because I thought things would fit better in a why or a when. It still worked but it would have worked better for me as I like to define a why question over a how question.

• The presenters were good at improvising and responding to the needs of the group. The informal structure of the session was great. Both trainers are very amiable and approachable so it doesn’t feel like you can give a ‘wrong’ answer.

• More due to the setting – perhaps ask everyone to have their cameras on as a default. I think it would really help. Perhaps also encourage work between delegates (breakout rooms?) as this would help break up the day a bit.

• Really good session, I can see how useful this sort of training would be for my team and it has made me realise the importance of teaching the fundamentals to new starters.

• Thought provoking with relevant exercises 

• The fact it was online limited some of the interaction a course like this would normally have 

• Both presenters were knowledgeable and engaging 

• Improve the jokes!

• No problem with the content, but had a numb bum by the end!!  Glad course was run – but Face to face would have been ideal 

• Thanks for running the day – good to meet you 

• I liked the size and informal nature of the course which enabled good interaction with the trainers and with the other attendees.

• Both very engaging speakers able to hold interest well and facilitate discussion. Maybe a touch more practice with the whiteboard (Smile emoji)

• .I thought the day was excellent, well delivered and interesting with a good balance of soft and harder skills elements.  The insistence of defining the spec was particularly interesting to me.  One of the things I’ve struggled with since joining the NHS a few months ago was not understanding if the reason I didn’t understand the question was because I was too green in the job or because my customers were asking poor questions so it was reassuring to understand that it’s not always me and to be given a framework to start defining a spec.

• I will certainly be looking out for other courses delivered by CHAIn because this one was so good.

• Thanks very much I thoroughly enjoyed it and thought it was well worth a day of anybody’s time. 

• Informative, interesting and well presented

• The epidemiological concepts were explained well. Clear presentation with good examples. the exercises helped to consolidate knowledge. Stats personally not needed as we would attend stats course for that knowledge. Focus on epidemiology / public health preferred. 

• Very engaging speaker. Very interesting day. Exactly what I wanted from it.

• Highly likely to attend another class by John

• Almost seemed like too much info to absorb in the timeframe. Possible not totally appropriate for myself but interesting nonetheless. Very well presented - clear and concise.

• Enjoyed the whole day, but the best part was revisiting statistics. Could of done with more time. Maybe less content or spread over more than one day.

• Learned a whole bunch of new and interesting information that I can use in my line of work. I think with the amount of content a 2 day course would suffice as it can be a bit overwhelming.  Well presented!

• Good introduction to topic, rushed but good presenter.

• Morning /afternoon were two courses. Good introduction but no time for specific information.

• The best part was foundational epidemiology

• Hands on experience with calculations and formulae

• Good coverage of formulae and explanations

• The afternoon content was especially actionable

• Exercises in the afternoon helped make more statistical content understandable

• Informative and challenging. The exercise are a great way to practise the theory.

• John was engaging and knowledgeable. Got us thinking. Didn't just read the slides. Very good!

• Productive, useful and gained new knowledge. Particularly enjoyed group discussion.

• Informative, well delivered and engaging.  While the stats part was really good, could have spent more time as probably most useful / applicable part of the session. Well delivered - thank you!

• Useful, informative and clear. Needed more time for the exercises.

• Informative, packed and interesting. A bit more in depth than what my team needs. Way too much for one day. I will use the materials to practice. Interesting and lots to learn - a great overview.  I need to learn maths and stats (including symbols and formulas).

• The morning was very in depth and at a good pace, but this was a refresher for me. More difficult topics in the afternoon could have been given more time to understand.

• Great to know how to apply epidemiology to my job. Could have done with more time for exercises, but actually the day was long enough (so possibly not a helpful comment!)

• Good presentation and nice examples of stats / standardisation. Needed a bit more time on the afternoon session. This was hard to take in quickly.

• Good worked examples and networking opportunity. Needed more discussion around applying learning to the workplace.

• Really liked the way in which multiple regression  was broken down into stages with sense checks at each point - helped with understanding why as well as how of building model

• Interesting session - makes me wonder how many published papers have issues with their models!

• Challenging and valuable information to give context to my work

• John is a great and engaging teacher, managing a solid 7-8 hours of technical material

• Good and useful course

• I just wanted to email to say how brilliant I thought the stats workshop was! Unfortunately I had to leave and miss the Thursday pm session, but I would love to fill in a feedback form, would you have one you could send me? It was so good and I feel lots of people would benefit from this workshop!

• I found the course very useful. Much appreciated. 

• Excellent. John Varlow is an amazing teacher. Clear and incredibly informative.

• Well thought out. Good build up of knowledge.

• John is a great teacher and I thoroughly enjoyed the session.

• I had not done statistics in over 10 years so I was a little slow in understanding, but the session was enjoyable

• I liked having access to the handouts rather than using the computer screen only.

• Brilliant, informative day. Thank You.

• The best statistics course I've been on. Everything was explained very clearly.

• Funny, engaging and well paced.

• Very informed. Good at explaining stats to non stats people

• Hopefully enable me to perform additional tasks in my role and take on more data specific roles

• I think everything was really good - thank you for this useful course

• I found day one to be more useful from a theoretical perspective as I will not be completing statistical tests using SPSS myself.  Day One will enable me to understand the statistics I read at work

• Has strengthened knowledge and given confidence to do own statistics

• Really good teaching from course leaders. Thanks

• Will be recommending to colleagues!

• I would have liked to understand the statistical tests a bit more but understand that this wouldn't have fit in time-wise. I do, however, feel confident in when to use them and the table was very useful and a good tool..

• I am better able to evaluate the tests in other papers, and interpret standard error

• I think its well run, excellent teaching style, good speed and content

• Very knowledgeable tutors. Thank you.

• Difficult but worthwhile 2 days. Thank you.

• I found the session very enjoyable. The quality of teaching materials was excellent and the session leader was very informed and approachable. I have a lot more understanding but want more. Where do I go for this? Learnt a lot. Thank you.

• John Varlow was very good and engaging. Very good explanations. Enjoyed session with John.

• This course is better than our 3 day CASP course. Would have liked extra! Great!

• Make it a 2 day session - excellent and I would like to know more. Great Course!

• Found the earlier bits a bit slower and the later too fast. It will help me in my work supporting a journal club and appraising literature that I come across during literature searches. Thanks for a great day!

• Will influence my teaching of critical appraisal and my understanding of research papers. Lots of good examples - which was great!

• Really enjoyed the session

• Too much information, although the presenter was good I think he needs to think about teaching methods i.e. not try to teach everything on a topic. But overall a useful session that built on my previous knowledge.

• This course will make me question data already produced. Look at different types of data to give correct information.

• Session was run well. Host was very knowledgeable.

• I will be better able to understand data presented in papers and using appropriate tests in own data.

• I expected this to be aimed at a higher level. I found the level quite patronising. I would say with 95% confidence that this is unlikely to affect my work.

• It will help me better understand statistical data

• I hope it will help me develop professionally and diversify. Thanks.

• Presenter has wonderful presentation skills and carried everyone along.

• The session was just right for me. I was familiar with 40% of the material, so enough new stuff

• Excellent session. I will be more knowledgeable and confident in my work.

• It will improve my understanding of studies. Excellent session.

• The teaching could be more comprehensive.

• Some of the concepts were too technical, fast moving and assumed prior knowledge of various things.

• Session is informative and well delivered. It will improve the data I provide.

• I found the session enjoyable and I now need to practice this. The session made me think.

• The tutor was very good

• I understand the short time but it felt rushed in the last session 

• The session started from a nice simple level. It was useful by being more relevant i.e. it used examples from the media, NHS and research. It was fun. 

• The session leader was incredible, it was the best bit of the session. I could have listened to him for hours. 

• Thank you for this great opportunity.

• This course exceeded my expectations. It was informative, relevant and non-patronising.  There was a lot I knew but a lot I didn't. 

• The best part of the day was working in groups if I had misunderstood or I could ask for more ideas in groups. 

• Needed a lot more time on statistics.

• Maybe a bit statistical at times. Great presenter - thank you.

• Best part of the course was being given the chance to develop own indicator and going through the process of indicator development. Possibly too much information to cover in one day.

• I liked all of it. Shame the last part was a bit rushed but it wasn't really a problem

• Because John has so much NHS knowledge and experience he could put information into an NHS context which was very useful to me.

• Realising my understanding of indicators and metrics was very lacking - the exercise really helped embed. Been on John Varlow's courses before, They always deliver in spades!

• Interactive session made you really consider the theory

• Really clear, good explanations. Could have gone deeper into power and sensitivity. Inspiring to apply principles at work. 

• The presenter was great.  Good technical content - really helpful to have the explanation of all concepts to be able to challenge more when asked for inappropriate indicators. Could possibly spend less time on the exercises - they were useful but took up a lot of time

• Enjoyed going through the basic questions around understanding your data. Understanding different methods – when and where to use, and why

• Excellent introduction – really helped to understand the different models and when to apply them

• Principles of which forecasting models to use, particularly the differing concepts and methods available

• The concepts were very useful. Practicality I found it too difficult (everyone else seemed to manage!)

• Exponential smoothing, understanding different trends, limitations of forecasting

• Particularly liked learning Solver and data & analysis packs on Excel

• The best part was the expansion of basic forecast/trend functions in Excel and explanation of why/when to use smoothing etc

• Enjoyed the practical sessions – putting theory into practice

• Good Excel exercises to illustrate the methods (although they were hard in some cases!!)

• Good structure to the day

• Good use of re-capping throughout the day to reinforce learning

• Liked the Excel templates that can be used on my own data

• The worksheets/exercises with the formulae in will be really useful to take away

• Enjoyed the whole day – excellent intro to forecasting and the formulae behind it

• Good intro to time series and forecasting

• Good knowledge to have. I won’t use it day-to-day but the odd task will come up where I can apply this

• A lot of info to take away and digest back at the office

• Excellent Slides!

• Enlightening, comprehensive and eye-opening. It was all interesting so not possible to pick a particular highlight. Really interesting and very well presented. Thank you!

• Quite above my level but very interesting to know what we should do. Lots of new information to receive and revise and go over. The presenter is always good - knows his subject.

• Helpful and insightful.  The basis behind the tests was explained great. The information given was very relevant to my current role. The presenter was very friendly and explained very well. The best part was going through research questions and questioning ambiguity.

• Thought-provoking, practical and well-paced.  Enjoyed practical application and having clarity of methods

• Informative and interesting

• The presentation was excellent and engaging. For me personally it was a lot of information to take in and could have been split into two sessions.

• Informative and understandable. A great course. The presenter was very engaging. The best part of the session was understanding the basics. I did a 4 year stats degree but felt I learnt and understood so much today. Understanding the basics is key!

• I can't think of anything that could be done better - it was great! The presenter was great. The course was great value and I paid for it personally!

• Comprehensive, useful and challenging. Enjoyed building up from first principles and making sure of understanding the components. Course could be slit between analytical leaders and analysts doing the work!

• Enjoyed everything except the ARIMA models which was gone through too quickly for me and I was lost. Better for me to spend more time on ETS models than fly through ARIMA models and get nothing.  Excellent presentation - complicated stuff made simple (mostly)

• All of the training was very interesting and engaging

• Best part of the day was understanding the concepts. There was lots of material provided for reference and taking back. I feel more confident now with applying methods.

• Engaging. Enjoyed reviewing the basics and going through the step by step of ETS.

• The presenter was excellent. Received lots of new information. Best part was going through exponential smoothing methods with spreadsheets.

• Challenging, informative and comprehensive. Good to think about  data source, quality, customer and destination. The recaps were good. Formulae could have been explained more clearly to make practical exercises more useful.

• Fascinating but difficult. 

• I thought there was too much content. I can't see myself using it much. The overview in the morning was good but needed more practical applications.

• Informative, useful and insightful. Found it very useful to recap at intervals during the day. Would have liked to have seen more exampled of health data

• Excel spreadsheet templates really useful

• Engaging and useful revision (from maths degree). I enjoyed all of it.  I found some exercises a bit confusing - maybe break down into steps

• Interesting and challenging. John made sure we understood the most important concepts and models. Plenty of repetition to help embed these.

• Interesting but complicated. Would have liked two days with more practical examples.

• Informative, complex and interesting. Enjoyed learning about ARIMA models. Good course!

• Good, complex and complete. Enjoyed the common sense approach to checking data.

• Comprehensive, clear and detailed. The overview of methods was good.

• I enjoyed all the day - just learning all the different ways you can use for forecasting

• Intensive but well structured and practical.

• Interesting, useful and challenging. The best part was getting an understanding of the methods I can use to forecast. 

• The course was fab! Really engaging, and the chap taking the course was constantly making sure that we understood the concepts.

• Relevant, interesting and engaging.  The best part was having exercises to apply what is being taught.

• Clear and Useful. Possibly if there was more time to work through the calculations, although the materials were good

• Interesting, enlightening and challenging. I am not a statistician so I found it a bit hard going at times

• Excellent. Very clear and engaging. It couldn't be better.

• Everything was explained nicely. Engaging and useful. Examples helped to understand the concepts

• Excellent. It was clear and gave pause for thought. I had learnt a lot of this before, but a long time ago so a good refresher. Really enjoyed it. Good explanation of concepts.

• Challenging, engaging and informative. Best part of day was using examples of the methodology. There were a lot of exercises  - maybe too many?

• The best part was the way the content was delivered i.e. quite dry content given life by the presenter

• Knowledge gathered from this training will help me to effectively analyse my department's data and helping to get it published

• Examples given made it much easier to put thing into context

• Session leader gives great answers, and understands what we tend to get wrong

• Brilliant session. Thank You! Really engaging and informative.

• Very good course. Very much enjoyed it!

• Useful for reviewing literature and evaluating and presenting data in reports. Much appreciated. Thank you very much!

• Wasn't quite as expected, but very worthwhile

• Good teaching style.

• Need to rebuild a number of data elements of a dashboard I've been working on.  Really enjoyed the course and found it interesting and entertaining

• It has improved my understanding and hopefully future application of statistics to my work including critical appraisal of papers.

• Brilliant session. Brilliant tutor who simplified a difficult topic.

• Picked up good tips. Will greatly affect my work/practice. Much clearer now.

• Thoughtful. Session leaders were outstanding. Will dramatically affect the work I do. Really helps me understand principles and will help me take my research further.  Superb session.

• The key topics in statistics were presented very clearly. Found this course extremely helpful.

• Enjoyable, but quite a lot of information for one day. Will improve research paper I am writing.

• I found it hard to link with the data I work with, but I found today insightful, well presented and delivered. I take on most of the data work in my team so will keep this in mind going forward. All together a great session and lots learned. Thank You.

• Great presenter style!

• Interesting, challenging and comprehensive. 

• Thought provoking and challenging. I thoroughly enjoyed it all. I cannot think of anything to improve. Thank you John

• Challenging, helpful and illuminating. The best part was the tables setting out methods for different studies, and the PICO approach to research.

• Informative, engaging and interesting. I will try and find ways to use this in my work as I think it could benefit me and others. A lot to take in!

• Excellent and informative. The exercises were great and the content was packed!

• Informative. Good examples given and concepts covered nicely. 

• Enjoyed learning about the different techniques used.

• The best part was learning that forecasting was possible in healthcare. I would have preferred if the course wasn't so stats based (formulas etc). It would be good to present in a simpler way for those that don't have a stats background. A great course, but suited to those with a stats background - the spreadsheets supplied were super helpful.

• Informal, informative and useful

• Good to understand the limitations of more complicated forecasting methods.

• It is a big subject for one day!

• Mind-blowing. Difficult but interesting. Loads of new information, just need to use it and remember.  I knew more then I realised! You could have more practical exercises / time spent doing but that would be another day...

• Insightful, informative and enjoyable. Covered a lot of techniques that a previous course covered, which is heartening. Very good course. I would have like it to be a two day course.

• Thought provoking, practical but advanced learning. Enjoyed practical sessions and group discussions. Can't think of anything that could be done better really

• Informative, interesting and brain numbing (in a good way). Lots of examples to puzzle through to aid understanding.

• Very good course. Brilliant way of explaining basic statistics. Will recommend others to attend if interested in research.

• Very, very knowledgeable

• Gives me confidence when reviewing figures quoted in research articles, and I feel better prepared to undertake my own research.

• Brilliant facilitator - John Varlow is clearly an expert in this field, is engaging and able to adapt to the speed of the group. Excellent that he kept recapping over what we had covered and thus solidifying our knowledge. Really enjoyed this course so thank you!

• Everything was brilliant. John explains things very well.

• Interactive / practical examples were excellent at explaining concepts

• Very good at explaining difficult ideas

• Good interactive sessions on Day 1. Day 2 use of SPSS is good.  Excellent tuition - very engaging

• All of it was structured really well with breaks to prevent overload. Data presented at correct level. Did not feel lost but learned a lot. I am excited to use this

• Can't think of anything that could be done better. Worth the long day and drive entirely.

• Enjoyed it all

• An incredibly useful and relevant insight , with potentially complex topics unravelled

• I liked that you made it interactive and started from the beginning so we could all get the basics covered thoroughly

• Very good session. Very well run course.

• Really informative and learnt a new set of skills

• A great refresher. Thanks

• Thank you to the teachers. Very dedicated indeed.

• I felt this session was well balanced. We had prior information for reading and evaluating the study. I believe trainee doctors will benefit from this course.

• I feel better prepared to start on a possible research proposal, more confidence and increased knowledge to hopefully provide better quality research in health and social care and subsequently better outcomes for service users. Thanks for a great day of learning!

• The session was delivered really well

• Interactive and group sessions made the study day interesting and informative

• Useful and very comprehensive. Excellent.

• I wish I'd gone on this course before doing my PhD!

• It was absolutely, best ever, BRILLIANT!!!

• Every analyst  should go on it, and rediscover their statistical mojo

• I’ve already exhumed  my stats and quantitative analysis  text books from uni days from their cubby hole in the loft and will be reforming our performance reporting at Poole henceforth!

•  John is welcome to come an deliver this day in the South anytime

• Absolutely brilliant, John said he is running more courses to do some of the bits he didn’t have time for and I will be attending. We are praising this course in our CCG too in a bid to get some of the dark side (non-analysts) to attend.

• I quite like the way the course presenter put everything in to context and focussed more on where and what to use rather than the specifics of how.

• A great course that benefits AphA members immensely, the metrics revolution has to start somewhere and we need to start correcting the use of certain datasets in the correct way, but also start teaching about certain uses of certain statistical methodologie

• This is just the sort of training event that we should be putting on at AphA – it went down really well with the attendees, there was a real buzz on the day. It was great