60 years of the National Health Service

  • NHS 60th Anniversary

Page last updated: 13-JUN-2008

60 years of the National Health Service

A website has been created to celebrate 60 years of the NHS in Scotland.
Data
1948 1958 1968 1978 1988 1998 2006/07
Births 1
Live births 100 344 99 481 94 786 64 295 66 212 59 440 55 690
Still births 2 966 2 324 1 425 524 357 319 296
Infant deaths 1
Infant mortality (rate per 1,000) 44.7 27.7 20.8 12.9 8.2 5.3 4.5
Infectious Diseases 2
Gonorrhoea 4 909 3 324 3 228 4 135 1 572 424 1 105
TB 10 046 5 889 2 056 1 299 528 464 340
Syphilis 2 760 343 306 248 68 39 269
Measles 15 193 4 638 10 938 8 953 2 258 694 164
Poliomyelitis 138 446 1 - - - -
Mortality 3
Life expectancy at birth - male 64.4 66.2 66.9 68.2 70.5 72.6 74.6
Life expectancy at birth - female 68.7 71.4 73.1 74.3 76.7 78.0 79.6
Hospital and clinical activity 4
Discharges 394 399 537 000 679 266 748 984 871 287 895 051 894 799
Outpatients - new .. .. 1 596 999 1 961 338 2 324 908 2 715 761 2 815 560
Outpatients - total .. 4 336 256 4 479 289 5 183 109 5 814 795 6 333 477 6 039 331
Workforce 5
Nurses and midwives 6 22 062 30 794 39 383 58 679 62 341 61 353 67 345
Consultants 7 646 934 1 491 1 826 2 129 3 007 4 035
General Practitioners (GPs) 2 647 2 859 2 709 3 161 3 694 4 024 4 721
Dentists (GDS) 1 200 1 344 1 102 1 223 1 572 1 955 2 546
Population 8 5 084 900 5 141 200 5 187 500 5 212 300 5 093 400 5 122 500 5 116 900

Notes
1 Births and Infant mortality - figure for 2008 is for the year 2006.
2 Data are provisional for year 2007.
3 Life Expectancy (in years) for births between 2004 and 2006. Figure for 1948 is for 1950/52 and figure for 1998 is for the year 1997.
4 Figures for 2008 are for year ending 31 March 2007. Outpatients Includes Accident and Emergency. Outpatient figures for 1998 have been revised.
5 Figures for 1988 and 1998 have been revised. Figures for 2008 are for year 2007.
6 Three confounding factors that affect trends in the headcount of nursing staff are: firstly, changes to the conditioned working hours - in the early fifties whole-time nurses worked a 96 hour fortnight compared to a 37.5 hour working week in 1997; secondly, the proportion of nursing staff who work part-time has changed over time - in 1955, 20% of nurses, in 1997, nearly 40% (double); thirdly, community nurses are not included in the figures until 1978.
7 Consultants - figure for 1948 is for the year 1949.
8 Population - figure for 2008 is the population at 30 June 2006.

 

Hospital inpatient discharges
number


Hospital-inpatient-discharges-number.gif

 

Nurses and midwives

Nurses-and-midwives.gif

 

Live births
Number

live-births-number.gif

 

Tuberculosis
Number of notifications

TB.gif

 

Infant mortality (deaths in the first year of life) rate per 1,000 births

infant-mortality.gif

 

Cancer mortality statistics

The following tables and charts show information on cancer mortality. Please note that cancer mortality data is only available from 1968 onwards.

EASR (European Age Standardised Mortality Rate)
Mortality rates are presented for selected cancers in Scotland, age standardised to the European standard population. Age standardisation allows the reader to assess the comparative numerical importance of each cancer, and to compare, between cancer sites, the change in mortality over time. 

Bowel cancer
Deaths from Bowel cancers
 
EASR
year
male
female
 
1968 39 31  
1978 37 29  
1988 32 24  
1998 31 19  
2006 27 16  

Bowel cancer mortality rate
(deaths per 100,000 person-years at risk) 

cancer-bowel-cancer-mortality.gif

Female breast cancer mortality
Deaths from Breast cancer, female
   
Year
EASR
1968 37  
1978 39  
1988 39  
1998 33  
2006 29  

Female breast cancer mortality rate (deaths per 100,000 person-years at risk)  

cancer-female-breast-cancer-mortality.gif

Lung cancer mortality
Deaths from Lung cancer
EASR
year
male
female
 
1968 115 19  
1978 126 32  
1988 111 40  
1998 85 43  
2006 70 47  

Lung cancer mortality rate (deaths per 100,000 person-years at risk)  

cancer-lung-cancer-mortality.gif

Prostate cancer mortality
Deaths from Prostate cancers, male
 
year
EASR
1968 19  
1978 19  
1988 25  
1998 25  
2006 24  

Prostate cancer mortality rate (deaths per 100,000 person-years at risk)  

cancer-prostate-cancer-mortality.gif


Main contact: Email Deborah Dunn