Effective use of data to support cardiac services across Scotland

The Scottish National Audit Programme (SNAP) team at Public Health Scotland (PHS) manage the technical aspects of audit data collection, data management and analysis, and also provide the translational link between the data and reality, adding intelligence and insight to findings.

In this blog post, the SNAP team explain the significance of the recently published Scottish Cardiac Audit Programme (SCAP) Interventional Report 2021/22.

This release by PHS is the first time the Scottish Cardiac Audit Programme (SCAP) has released data in relation to cardiac interventions undertaken in Scotland and helps support one of the key priority areas outlined in the Heart Disease Action plan:

"To ensure that high-quality, standardised data is available and used effectively to support clinical decision-making, understand patient outcomes and enable better service-planning."

SCAP has received data submissions from clinical teams across Scotland up to April 2022, with data reported on over 12,000 procedures for the period of 2021/22 alone.

The vision of SNAP, under which SCAP operates, is to provide an internationally recognised health intelligence service in partnership with stakeholders to audit clinical care, and promote safe, effective and person-centred healthcare in Scotland.

SCAP is working collaboratively with clinical colleagues across NHS Boards, third sector colleagues, and those with lived experience to co-design the future of the audit programme. The co-design approach will ensure the audit includes measures that help inform improvements in clinical services which are important to patients and their families.

SCAP has been supported by the Health and Social Care Alliance Scotland (the ALLIANCE) to meet regularly and engage with the lived experience group of people living with heart disease across Scotland to ensure the person-centred focus of the programme.

Establishing closer links with clinical teams has been one of the strengths of SCAP and publication of the audit report is an exciting development in data driven care as we work to realise the ambitions set out in the Heart Disease Action Plan.

Read the Scottish Cardiac Audit Programme (SCAP) Interventional Report. 

If you would like to learn more about the work of any of the SNAP audits, view the list of SNAP audit publications. From here you can find details of their individual websites and contact details for the teams who manage these projects.

The audit is led by a multidiscipline, multi-agency steering group, members of which include NHS Board clinical staff representing the multiple professions involved in cardiac care as well as the national clinical improvement lead from the Scottish Government.

To contact SNAP to find out more information, email phs.snap@phs.scot