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Hospital Care

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This website is now part of Public Health Scotland. Publications released after 16 March 2020 are now published on the Public Health Scotland website.
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Hospital Care

Latest Publications

Publications are no longer updated on this website. View the latest releases of publications on our Beta website.

Publications prior to July 2020 can still be found on the publications pages.

Quarterly Publication

Quarterly statistics on inpatient and daycase activity; outpatient activity; and beds statistics up to quarter ending June 2019 are available on the quarterly acute activity web pages. This includes activity by age/sex, SIMD and specialty, by NHS Board, council area and hospital, for quarter ending June 2014 to quarter ending June 2019.

Transforming Publishing Programme (TPP)

In the summer of 2017 ISD Scotland launched an exciting project to increase the value of the information we release to you. We are working with a range of people from different settings to develop a new way of releasing information. We hope this will make it easier for you to access, understand, and use our statistics.

The quarterly Acute Hospital Activity and NHS Beds publication is the first ISD publication to be developed as part of this programme. For the December 2017 release, the new version of the publication was provided alongside the original format. A consultation survey was undertaken to seek views on this new platform release which closed on the 28 February 2018. Overview of the consultation responses and other feedback received Download PDF file.

From March 2018 onwards, this new TPP version has replaced the previous format and is the sole release of the Quarterly Acute Hospital Activity and NHS Beds data.

Annual Publication

As part of the September 2019 Acute Hospital Care and NHS Beds Information publication, ISD Scotland has released annual statistics to year ending March 2019.
The annual activity statistics include information on:

  • Annual trends in available beds, by NHS Board, hospital and specialty
  • Annual trends in outpatient activity
  • Annual trends in Accident & Emergency activity
  • Average length of stay, by specialty
  • Cross-boundary flow; patients treated in NHS Boards outwith their own
  • Trends in diagnoses, by NHS Board and council area
  • Trends in emergency hospital admissions
  • Trends in multiple emergency admissions
  • Procedures carried out in hospitals
  • Trends in inpatient and day case activity (Including Psychiatric Hospital activity)

Specific issues relating to the September 2019 annual release are detailed in the Annual Data Issues and Completeness document Download PDF file [360Kb].

2019 Acute Activity Consultation

ISD is committed to producing accurate and robust information and intelligence that best meets the needs of our stakeholders, customers and public.With this in mind, in March 2019, ISD undertook a consultation Download PDF file on proposed changes to present a revised timetable for the 2019 Acute Activity and NHS Beds publications. ISD want to base our publications on the most robust data available, while adhering to the guidelines and principles of National Statistics releases. Please see the summary of the findings for more information. This document can also be found on our quarterly acute activity web pages.

For more information on the Acute Hospital Activity and NHS Beds statistics publication contact: phs.qualityindicators@phs.scot

Introduction

This section of our website brings together information on different aspects of acute hospital care, sourced from hospital administrative systems across Scotland. Note that 'Acute' hospital care excludes obstetric, psychiatric and long stay care services that are covered elsewhere on the ISD website. For reference, a listing of all Scottish hospitals (acute and non-acute) can be found by following the Hospitals link on the menu to the left of this page.

The Hospital Care pages contain information on outpatient activity, inpatient and day case activity, the number of NHS beds, and information on hospital diagnoses and operations/procedures. Please use the relevant links on the left side of the page to explore the information available on acute hospital activity in Scotland.

The UK Statistics Authority has designated these statistics as National Statistics signifying compliance with the Code of Practice for Statistics, available on the UK Statistics Authority website.

The statistics last underwent a full assessment by the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) against the Code of Practice in September 2011. The OSR is the regulatory arm of the UK Statistics Authority.

These pages also include information relating to NHSScotland performance against HEAT targets relating to hospital care. Local Delivery Plan standards have now replaced HEAT targets. Further information can be found on the Scotland Performs Website.

Background

Acute hospitals provide a wide range of specialist care and treatment for patients. Typically, services offered in the NHS Acute sector are diverse. They include: consultation with specialist clinicians (consultants, nurses, dieticians, physiotherapists and a wide range of other professionals); emergency treatment following accidents; routine, complex and life-saving surgery; specialist diagnostic procedures; and close observation and short-term care of patients with worrying health symptoms.

Another major part of the work of many acute hospitals involves the treatment of patients who have a health problem that requires urgent attention. Many of these patients will be treated within an Accident and Emergency (A&E) department and will not require a hospital admission. Typically, a patient will be admitted as an emergency inpatient if their condition is considered by a doctor to be serious enough to warrant urgent hospital care and treatment.

In the past, most reported patient activity has been attributed in national information systems to consultants and general practitioners, reflecting perhaps a more traditional view of the consultant as leader of the clinical team. This has had the effect of obscuring or overlooking the clinical contribution, in both hospitals and in the community, of nursing staff, allied health professionals and other healthcare professionals in nationally presented statistics. In recent years there has been a greater emphasis given towards enhancing the role of these professionals but the information systems required to account for many of these changes have not been available nationally.

Currently it is difficult to describe and quantify accurately the level of operations and clinical procedures carried out in an outpatient setting. This is particularly relevant for monitoring how changes in clinical practice have enabled the transfer of certain clinical activities, previously requiring inpatient or day case admission, to outpatient clinics. Whilst outpatient procedure recording has improved in recent years, gaps in the completeness and coverage remain. Details can be found within the Hospital Care Operation and Procedures page.

It should be noted that that there are apparent differences between activity figures published within the Hospital Care, Waiting Times and Finance web pages.

  • The figures for elective admissions and new outpatients in the Acute Hospital Activity publication are considerably higher than the equivalent information published on the Inpatient, Day Case and Outpatient waiting times web pages. This is largely due to the use of different definitions between the two sets of figures. For example, Acute Hospital Activity information includes people who were treated in hospital, whilst the Waiting Times publication focuses on people who have been placed on a waiting list.
  • Figures for inpatient and day case activity in the Acute Hospital Activity publication differ slightly when compared to the equivalent information released in the Finance web pages. This is largely due to the use of different definitions for the two sets of figures. For example, the Finance “acute” activity excludes the specialty of Geriatric Medicine and patients treated in Neonatal and Younger Physically Disabled Units, which differs from the “acute” activity that is published in the Acute Hospital Activity pages. The Finance publication also excludes consultant-only transfers from the inpatient figures.

For detailed information on data sources and clinical coding used within Hospital Care analysis please refer to the Data Sources and Clinical Coding document Download Word file[970kb].

Caution should be taken when comparing Scottish hospital activity and beds data with information from the rest of the UK as there are likely to be key differences in analysis methodologies and data collection processes.

The Office of National Statistics United Kingdom Health Statistics 2010 publication provides a single point of reference for the comparison of key figures between the four constituent countries of the UK. Hospital activity and bed statistics can be found within chapters 6 and 8 respectively. Whilst the four UK countries worked collaboratively to maximise the comparability of the figures, it is important to note that differences between the countries remain in the way that data measures are collected and classified, and because of differences between countries in the organisation of health and social services. The report includes the details of these differences where relevant.

Hospital activity data from England, Wales and Northern Ireland are available separately but should not be directly compared with published data from Scotland.

England - NHS Outcomes and Performance, NHS Hospital Episode Statistics (HES)

Wales - Health and care statistics

Northern Ireland - Hospital Statistics & Research

 

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