About this release

This release by Public Health Scotland (PHS) presents General Practice (GP) activity data extracted from participating practices across NHS Scotland from January 2018 to May 2023 by NHS board and Health and Social Care Partnership (HSCP).

This exploratory work aims to illustrate the type of activity information captured within GP clinical systems. Not all activity is recorded on the clinical systems and information on the complexity or duration of the activity is currently unavailable. Therefore, the activity reported does not represent all the work happening within a primary care setting.

Please note the data contained within this visualisation is not directly comparable to other work on GP activity ongoing in NHS England (NHS Digital), or NHS Wales (NWIS), due to differences in methodology of counting and classifying GP activity.

We have identified areas where blood tests results have been recorded as direct face-to-face activity rather than administration activity. It was planned to reflect this change in extract methodology in the June 2023 publication and include comparisons showing the differences in mapping going back to January 2018. However, this has been delayed due to technical issues.

Areas of possible inconsistent counts being returned have also been identified, this is currently being investigated as a matter of priority.

The data remains experimental and subject to change and monthly figures and comparisons should be used with caution.

Further information

Data presented in the visualisation are subject to change.

Where it is identified data are excluded from that month's release due to technical issues, these data will be updated the following month.

The next release of this publication will be 29 August 2023.

General enquiries

If you have an enquiry relating to this publication, please contact Mike McCabe at phs.generalpractice@phs.scot.

Media enquiries

If you have a media enquiry relating to this publication, please contact the Communications and Engagement team.

Requesting other formats and reporting issues

If you require publications or documents in other formats, please email phs.otherformats@phs.scot.

To report any issues with a publication, please email phs.generalpublications@phs.scot.

Older versions of this publication

Versions of this publication released before 16 March 2020 may be found on the Data and Intelligence, Health Protection Scotland or Improving Health websites.

Last updated: 21 March 2024
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