About the National Survey for Wales

The National Survey for Wales is your chance to tell us your views on the NHS, council services, your local area and more. The information collected is used to help develop policies and decide how services are delivered. Your answers will help improve services in your area.

The survey is carried out by an independent research company, the National Centre for Social Research (NatCen), on behalf of

• Welsh Government
• Sport Wales
• Natural Resources Wales
• Arts Council of Wales

The survey covers a wide range of topics such as:

• health and the NHS
• local council services and your local area
• housing
• the environment
• sports and arts

The online survey takes about 30 minutes to complete. There are no right or wrong answers, and you do not need any special knowledge. You can skip any questions that you are not comfortable answering.

The survey should be completed by any two people aged 16 or over living in your household. If there is only one person aged 16 or over living there, then only they should take part.

You can complete the survey in Welsh or English. If you would like to take part in another language, you could ask a family member or friend to translate for you.

It is okay to ask a friend or relative to help you complete the survey, but the answers should only come from the person who has been chosen to take part.

If you would prefer to take part in the survey another way or need us to arrange an interpreter, you can contact us.

Taking part is voluntary and we hope that you can help us make sure that all kinds of people across Wales are represented in the results. If you choose not to take part, we cannot replace you with anyone else. If you do not wish to take part you can let us know by contacting us.

How participants are selected

Addresses are chosen at random from the Royal Mail’s publicly available list of addresses in Wales.

We write to the selected addresses with instructions on how to take part. If we don’t hear back from an address, we will write to them again to let them know about other ways of taking part.

If your address is selected for the survey, we will send you an:

• invitation letter
• information leaflet

Sample letters

To say thank you for completing the survey, we will send you a £15 gift card.

Gift cards will be sent to you by email or post – we will ask you for your preference at the end of the survey.

View the full list of retailers where you can spend email gift cards

View the full list of retailers where you can spend gift cards sent by post

We keep all answers and personal information confidential and in accordance with the Data Protection Act. People taking part in the survey are not identifiable in the survey results and answers are used only for research purposes.

Responses to the survey will not be used for marketing or commercial purposes.

For more information about how we use the information collected, read our privacy notice.

The following organisations provide support, advice and information on topics covered in the survey:

Age Cymru - support and advice for older people.

Community Advice and Listening Line - Mental Health Helpline for Wales

Citizens Advice - advice on a wide range of issues.

Help me quit - help to quit smoking.

Live Fear Free - support for victims of domestic abuse 24 hours a day.

Money Helper - free, independent advice on money issues.

Shelter Cymru - advice on housing and homelessness. 

Universal Credit Helpline 

Working Wales - information, advice and guidance about support if you are made redundant.

NHS 111 Wales - health advice and information, 24 hours a day.

Volunteering Wales - register as a volunteer.

Wales Drug and Alcohol Helpline DAN 24/7 - Help with alcohol and drug problems, 24 hours a day.

National Gambling Helpline - support and advice on gambling problems.

Mencap Cymru - learning disability helpline Wales. 

Natural Resources Wales - information on flood risks and warnings.

Data linking is the process of bringing together person-level records from different sources.

Benefits of data linking

Linking information to other records:

• reduces demands on people to take part in surveys such as the National Survey for Wales
• greatly reduces the cost of collecting information
• allows different types of information to be more readily available, enabling research to be carried out more quickly
• helps make better use of existing information

Data linking in the National Survey

The Health Information Research Unit (HIRU) for Wales is a research unit based at Swansea University. They link information from several surveys and databases across Wales through the Secure Anonymised Information Linkage (SAIL) databank.

Anonymised responses to the National Survey for Wales are linked with other data sources by HIRU. Names, addresses and postcodes are not included in the linked data. The information is used for non-commercial research only.

You can opt out of having your anonymised answers linked. You can opt out when you take part in the survey, or by contacting the National Survey for Wales team.

If you have any questions about the National Survey for Wales you can contact NatCen by:

• phone on 0800 652 9294
• email at nationalsurvey@natcen.ac.uk

NatCen can help you with questions about:

• taking part in the survey online
• other ways to take part
• your gift card

For all other queries, contact Welsh Government’s National Survey for Wales team by:

• phone: 0300 025 2021
• email: surveys@gov.wales