A regional daily has teamed up with an investigative website to launch a new data journalism initiative which examines the numbers behind the stories.

The Birmingham Mail is working in partnership with Help Me Investigate for its new project Behind The Numbers and its first story was published last Friday.

Mail reporter Katy Hallam and Paul Bradshaw from Help Me Investigate looked at the hourly Accident and Emergency data to find out the best and worst hours to be seen at the region’s hospitals.

It revealed that the worst times to be seen were between 1am and 2am when patients faced an average wait of nearly three hours.

A story in the Mail about the project said: “We’ve launched a new initiative looking at the numbers behind our city and the stories in it.

“‘Behind The Numbers’ is all about the explosion in ‘data’: information about our hospitals and schools, crime and the way it is policed, business and sport, arts and culture.

“Thanks to laws like the Freedom of Information Act, and initiatives surrounding government transparency, it is easier than ever to get that data.

“Add in the power of the internet and computers, and it’s now possible for anyone to find interesting things in data – whether those people are journalists, teachers, nurses or business owners.

“This data journalism is responsible for some of the biggest stories of the last few years, from the MPs’ expenses scandal to the various Wikileaks stories.

“But at a local level, it’s also where you’ll find everything from school league tables to the times ran by every runner in the Great Birmingham Run.”

The story about A&E waiting times included figures for the NHS trusts across the region, along with a graph showing the average times throughout the day.