Reference Information 2015/16
General
Information contained in the Costs Book is primarily derived from Scottish Financial Returns (SFRs) which are compiled by Scottish Health Boards, and completed as part of their annual accounts cycle. NHS Board annual accounts are audited by an independent body before being agreed by the Scottish Government (SG). While there is no audit of Costs Book, NHS Boards are required to show how the quantum of costs included in the Costs Book reconciles to expenditure and income reported in the Statement of Comprehensive Net Expenditure (SOCNE) from the annual accounts. To support this process, the SG is responsible for providing NHS Boards with an Annual Accounts manual 
[2Mb]. ISD also issue NHS Boards with a data template (SFR 29.0) [258kb] to record this reconciliation.
The collection of costs data is supported by a number of guidance manuals, reference files and systems logic to ensure consistency and quality of the Costs Book. These include:
Annual accounts manual [2Mb]
Costing Guidance manual [2.2Mb]
Costs Book Reconciliation to Annual Accounts [258kb]
Scottish Financial Returns (SFRs)
Data for the Costs Book is collected on a series of Scottish Financial Returns (SFRs). The main SFRs are:
- SFR 5s collect both financial information and activity statistics for each hospital
- SFR 8s collect financial and activity statistics for community services for each NHS Board
- SFR 27s collect information on laboratory services
Blank templates as well as the completed templates received from each hospital and board are available.
Costs Book Data Collection System
The Costs Book Data Collection System (CBDCS) is a web-based data collection system issued to NHS Boards to assist them in compiling and submitting the Scottish Financial Returns to ISD on an annual basis. A central version of CBDCS is held at ISD which holds data returns from NHS Boards. To support data collection and submission, ISD provides NHS Boards with a comprehensive Costing Guidance Manual. To ensure consistency across all NHS Boards, this manual is updated on a regular basis with input from NHS Boards, the Scottish Government and ISD. In addition, a supplement to the Costing Guidance manual with information specific to the coming year's collection is provided to NHS Board staff.
More information on the Costs Book Data Collection System can be found within the Summary Guidance document.
Data Quality Assurance
The Costs Book Data Collection System has built in functionality to support data compilation and data quality assurance. The system is updated regularly to include any changes to data templates (SFRs) and validation rules.
In June 2012 an updated version of the CBDCS was introduced across NHS Scotland. The new CBDCS has a comprehensive on-line validation facility to ensure that data is complete and valid prior to submission to ISD. It also includes a year on year comparability function allowing NHS Boards to quality check their data at the point of input and prior to them submitting the data to ISD.
To further enhance the quality of the data submissions, the ISD Data Management team produce draft data quality assurance reports for each NHS Board to review their information. Further manual quality checks of the data are then carried out by the ISD Data Management team. Any queries or anomalies are raised with the finance staff at the relevant NHS Board (s). To ensure data robustness, queries may go back and forth between ISD and an NHS Board until a satisfactory resolution is reached.
Once agreement has been reached, the ISD Costs Book analytical team produce a draft version of the R100 Executive Summary Report for each individual NHS Board. The R100 Executive Summary Report profiles the main elements of the Costs Book data and is sent to the Director of Finance at each NHS Board for sign off.
When making comparisons across Scotland, or interpreting the Costs Book data, it should be noted that individual NHS Boards/hospitals (e.g. Island Boards) can face low volume of patients, fixed costs, economies of scale and rural settings which can result in substantial fluctuations in unit costs and case figures for some hospitals. To aid user interpretation, any data quality issues are footnoted at the bottom of tables where possible.
Additional information on Data Quality Assurance can be found within the Summary Guidance document.
Patient Activity
Inpatient, daycase, outpatient and day patient statistics are taken from the ISD(S)1 scheme (hospital aggregate statistics). More information is available in the guidance manual and definitions can be found in the data dictionary (below).
ISD(S)1 Data Manual
[341kb]
Prior to 2012, information on outpatient treatments (SFR 5.6) was taken from SMR00. Activity was limited to a specific basket of outpatient procedures. In 2012, SFR 5.6 was dropped from the Costs Book data collection. From 2012, activity and costs for outpatient treatments are collected on SFR 5.7.
Data Definitions
More information about the general health service terminology used in the Costs Book can be found in the Data Dictionary section of our website (accessed from the link below). Some of the financial terms used are explained in the financial dictionary below or in the Costs Book manual (above).
Data Dictionary
Financial Definitions - definitions of some of the common financial terms used in the Costs Book
Board Profiles
NHS health care in Scotland is currently provided by 14 NHS Boards. This care covers that provided in hospital, in the community and within the primary care sector (e.g. GPs and dentists). Hospital care is also provided at National Golden Jubilee Hospital and the State Hospital (classed as special boards). The following table lists the hospitals managed by each board:
Board Profile 
[19kb] - hospitals (including clinics and other locations), by board
Hospital Profiles
The following links to tables give information about the hospitals in each board including number of beds and specialties provided:
Hospital Profile [50kb] - a list of all hospitals in the Costs Book that provide inpatient care, and the specialties provided. This table also includes information about the type of hospital and the number of beds available.
Hospital Classification [10kb] - each location is classified by type so that costs and activity at similar locations can be compared. The classification by type and size is intended to be indicative of the group rather than prescriptive.
Specialty
The list of specialties covered in the Costs Book is available from the link below. Activity in some significant facilities such as Intensive Care Unit and Coronary Care Unit, which is usually counted within specialty, is measured and costed separately in the Costs Book. Also included in the table is a listing of specialties by type of care (such as Acute and Maternity).
Specialty [16kb] - specialty listing
Reports
The Costs Book presents a series of reports from the data collected from the SFRs. For some of the reports, there is an additional version that has been designed for download and further analysis and may include additional data items. Use the link below to see the source of the data included in each report and how the figures are calculated.
Report Logic [79kb] - data sources and calculations for each Costs Book report.
Population
Population [11kb] - 2015 mid-year estimates for Scotland and each board area.
