Mental health inpatient activity
A National Statistics publication for Scotland
- Published
- 24 November 2020
- Type
- Statistical report
- Author
- Public Health Scotland
Data Quality
Strengths and limitations
In order to determine the quality of the statistics that we publish, PHS assesses the risk of data quality concerns (external website) for each publication. Publications are assigned a low, medium or high data quality risk rating. This rating is based on factors such as the number of data suppliers involved, the complexity of the data collection process and the quality assurance checks applied to the data. This publication has been assigned a low risk of data quality concerns.
How can the data in this publication be used?
This data can be used to:
- Compare areas across Scotland
- View trends over time
- Compare activity between different specialties, age and sex groups, or deprivation levels
- Assess whether patients were treated within or outwith their own Health Board
- Explore the relationship between hospital activity and living in a deprived area
This data should not be used to:
- Directly compare with other UK countries
- Combine quarterly data to approximate annual figures
- Compare averages across different time periods
- Identify numbers of patients (only stays or episodes)
- Identify areas of affluence
- Identify how much more deprived an area is from another
Data collection and validation
The data presented in this publication are sourced from hospital administrative systems across Scotland and extracted from the Scottish Morbidity Record (SMR) 01 and 04 datasets held by PHS (formerly ISD Scotland).
The Scottish Government target for SMR submission to PHS is 6 weeks following a hospital admission or discharge or transfer, death or a clinic attendance. For example, all SMR records with a March 2019 date of discharge would be expected to be submitted to PHS by 12th May 2019. NHS Boards know how complete their SMR submissions are and the extent of any backlog (data which are not submitted by the 6 week deadline) and this information is used to produce completeness figures. Further details of SMR data completeness and timeliness can be found on the SMR Completeness and Timeliness web pages respectively.
Communication with data supply partners
The SMR01 and SMR04 data used in this publication is processed and monitored by the Data Support & Monitoring Team. More information can be found on the data monitoring page (external website).
Summary of data completeness
|
NHS Board
|
SMR01
|
SMR04
|
|||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apr'19-Jun'19 | Jul'19-Sep'19 | Oct'19-Dec'19 | Jan'20-Mar'20 | Jul'19-Sep'19 | Oct'19-Dec'19 | Jan'20-Mar'20 | |
| Ayrshire & Arran | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% |
| Borders | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% |
| State Hospital | 100% | 100% | 69% | ||||
| Golden Jubilee | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | |||
| Fife | 99% | 99% | 99% | 98% | 100% | 100% | 100% |
| Greater Glasgow & Clyde | 100% | 100% | 100% | 99% | 100% | 100% | 100% |
| Highland | 99% | 99% | 98% | 99% | 99% | 99% | 99% |
| Lanarkshire | 100% | 99% | 99% | 99% | 100% | 100% | 97% |
| Grampian | 98% | 98% | 98% | 98% | 96% | 98% | 99% |
| Orkney | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | |||
| Lothian | 99% | 99% | 98% | 98% | 100% | 100% | 100% |
| Tayside | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% |
| Forth Valley | 94% | 86% | 40% | 9% | 91% | 88% | 90% |
| Western Isles | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% |
| Dumfries & Galloway | 100% | 100% | 100% | 99% | 100% | 100% | 100% |
| Shetland | 99% | 99% | 99% | 98% | |||
| All NHS Boards | 99% | 98% | 96% | 94% | 99% | 99% | 98% |
The above table draws upon the data management page (external website) to present completeness for the patient-level datasets. The above completeness estimates were taken on 10 November 2020.
Data quality issues
General issues
For the financial year 2019/20 the SMR01 and SMR04 datasets were estimated to be 97% and 99% complete respectively (as at November 2020). Completeness varied between the NHS Boards, further information on the completeness of individual NHS Boards can be found above. The majority of data submission issues have resulted from the implementation of the new Patient Management System (TrakCare) and other existing system issues.
Data quality assessment
The PHS Data Quality Assurance (DQA) team is responsible for ensuring that SMR datasets are accurate, consistent and comparable across time and between sources. The DQA team’s assessments web page (external website) contains details of past Data Quality Assurance Assessments of SMR01 and SMR04 data, including findings on the accuracy of submitted data items used in our analysis such as specialty and admission type. In order to assess the quality of recording, the DQA compares samples of records against source evidence in hospital systems and patient case notes. PHS have a 90% standard for accuracy and recording of data.
The Mental Health team who produce this publication also carry out thorough quality assurance (QA) checks on the data after extraction from the databases, in accordance with the PHS checking guidance (PDF). For example, they compare figures for the same years between the current and previous publications in order to identify any large changes in the data sources. Additionally, they look at trends within the current publication in order to identify any unusual patterns. For changes or patterns in the data which cannot be explained by the known completeness estimates, the team contact the relevant board to highlight the issue and request an explanation. Any information provided by the board is included in this report.
Data sources
The data presented in this publication are sourced from hospital administrative systems across Scotland and extracted from the Scottish Morbidity Record (SMR) 04 and 01 datasets held by PHS. The specialty of learning disability is excluded from the figures published here.