Page last updated: 29-JUN-2010

Inpatient, Day Case and Outpatient Activity

Data Sources: The Scottish Morbidity Record 01 (General/Acute Inpatient and Day Case - SMR01)

SMR01 is an episode-based patient record relating to all inpatients and day cases discharged from non-obstetric and non-psychiatric specialties. Geriatric long stay is also excluded (As from April 1997 onward Geriatric long stay started to be recorded on SMR50 - known as Geriatric Long Stay).

Data collected include patient identifiable and demographic details, episode management details and general clinical information. Currently Diagnoses are recorded using the ICD-10 classification and operations are recorded using the OPCS-4 classification.

General acute admissions are categorised as follows;

  • Inpatients - this is when a patient who occupies an available staffed bed in a hospital and:
    • EITHER - remains overnight whatever the original intention (except haemodialysis patients).
    • OR - at admission, is expected to remain overnight but is discharged earlier (except haemodialysis patients). Discharges include transfers-out and deaths.
  • Day Case - this is when a patient who makes a planned attendance to a specialty for clinical care, sees a doctor or dentist or nurse (as the consultants representative) and requires the use of a bed or trolley in lieu of a bed. The patient is not expected to, and does not, remain overnight. Many of these patients require anaesthesia.

Inpatient admissions can be further broken down into;

  • Emergency admission - this occurs when, for clinical reasons, a patient is admitted at the earliest possible time after seeing a doctor. The patient may or may not be admitted through Accident & Emergency. Coding rules state that a Day Case patient should not be admitted as an emergency.
  • Elective (planned) admission - this is when the patient has already been given a date to come to hospital for some kind of procedure.
  • Transfer - this is where a patient will already have been admitted to hospital and is either transferred between specialties or hospital, and will be part of the same continuous stay in hospital.

ISD Scotland can provide a fuller explanation of the above if required.

Data is readily available from 1981 onwards.  However, information has been collected since 1961 although data from around 1965 onwards is considered to be more robust than previous years. Records are submitted on discharge. 


Main contact: Email Secondary Care Team