The landscape of information is continually evolving, guided in part by policy review documents and by changes in clinical and management practices.  Routinely collected information, previously skewed towards management needs, is shifting significantly towards the developing needs of clinicians.  Technological advancement offers better ways of capturing and disseminating information.  Information Services Division (ISD) of NHS National Services Scotland must keep abreast of these clinical and service changes to remain relevant.

Several schemes to capture data, which provide meaningful information and contribute to improving patient care, are in progress in ISD.  These schemes span ISD's various programmes and groups, but principally through the Data Development Programme, while involving its stakeholders and meeting the policy objectives.

This site provides information on some of ISD's data development schemes.

 The report of the national one-day Nurse Census  (undertaken on Thursday 24th April, 2008), was published on 25th November 2008.  The Census was a one-day data capture exercise developed by nurses for nurses.  The census asked community nursing staff (District Nurses, Health Visitors, School, Treatment Room and Family Health Nurses) to complete a web-based form to capture information about their activity on that day.

The third and final report from the census of Allied Health Professionals, AHPs Do Count: developing clinical data to inform the service about the work of AHPs, together with an additional report: AHPs Do Count: relating findings from the AHP census to the AHP electronic community health information project (AHPeCHIP), written by Margaret Hastings (AHP Information Development Officer, SEHD, 2003 - 2006), were published on the 28th September 2006.

A new section presenting early indicative statistics that provide insights into Changing Clinical Practices: Changing Data is available for:

Allied Health Professionals and other Technical Departments, 
Nurse-led Clinics, 
Outpatient Procedures/Operations, 
Outpatient Waiting List,
Practice Team Information
Scottish National Tariff