Hospital care

SMR01 - Acute Hospital Admissions

Secondary care data are sourced from the Scottish Morbidity Records (SMR) and ISD(S)1 datasets held by Public Health Scotland (PHS). SMR01, SMR00 and ISD(S)1 statistics are presented within the hospital care topic on the PHS website.

SMR01 (Inpatients and Day Cases)

The SMR01 dataset comprises episode-based patient records relating to all inpatients and day cases discharged from non-obstetric, non-psychiatric specialties and excluding geriatric long stay records. Data are updated on a monthly basis and include clinical and non-clinical data. An SMR01 episode is generated when a patient is discharged from hospital but also when a patient is transferred between hospitals, significant facilities, specialties or to the care of a different consultant.

SMR00 (Outpatients)

The SMR00 dataset contains patient-based information on appointments at outpatient clinics in all specialties (except A&E and Genito-Urinary Medicine) in NHSScotland. Data are updated on a monthly basis and include first and total outpatient activity and attendance status, for example Did Not Attends (DNAs). Outpatient attendances involve treatment or assessment that only take a short time to complete. Outpatient attendances are categorised as new or return (follow-up).

ISD(S)1 (Beds and Return Outpatients)

ISD(S)1 is a set of aggregated summary statistics on activity and resources in hospitals in Scotland and is derived from monthly and quarterly returns from the NHS Boards. ISD(S)1 also does not record information on the age or sex of patients, nor the deprivation of the area in which they live. ISD(S)1 is the only source of bed occupancy and bed availability data and contains summarised data by NHS Board of Treatment, hospital and specialty. ISD(S)1 is also used for return outpatient activity since completeness for return outpatients in SMR00 is poor.

For more information, please contact phs.qualityindicators@phs.scot

SMR04 - Psychiatric Hospital Admissions

SMR04 is an episode-based record relating to all inpatients discharged from psychiatric hospitals in Scotland. Details of the information collected, completeness and timeliness are all accessed via the same links as for the SMR01 data above. SMR04 statistics are reported on the ISD website. Data quality of SMR04 data were reported for 2015/16.

All SMR01 and SMR04 hospital discharge records, submitted between 1980 to present day from non-obstetric specialties, are routinely combined with cancer and death registration records to form continuous patient level profiles.  This is called the ISD SMR linked dataset.

Data Quality

Full details of SMR data completeness and timeliness can be found on the SMR Completeness and Timeliness web pages respectively. PHS do not produce completeness levels for ISD(S)1, however, the Data Management team query any unusual numbers with NHS Boards. 

Scottish NHS Boards have a responsibility to ensure their SMR data is accurate, consistent and comparable across time and between sources. The PHS Data Quality Assurance team (DQA) audit SMR data at NHS Boards to determine if they have been properly recorded in accordance with national rules and standards. The DQA team’s assessment web page contains reports from past audits of inpatient/day case data, including findings on the accuracy of submitted SMR data items used in our analysis (specialty, admission type, etc).