Source : Information from general practice (CMR)

Continuous Morbidity Recording (CMR) is a set of data collected from every face-to-face doctor-patient contact in a set of practices across Scotland. The practices provide an adequate representation of the Scottish population in terms of age, gender. deprivation and urban/rural mix.

The data set includes:

• Patient identifier (this is generated by the GPASS computer system and is practice specific)
• Date of birth
• Diagnosis (up to ten per contact)
• Sex
• Modifier (first, recurrence or persistent - for each diagnosis)
• Postcode
• Date of consultation

As patients often present with multiple problems, up to ten diagnoses can be recorded for each contact. Each diagnosis is given a modifier which describes whether it is either the first time the problem has presented, a recurrence of a previous problem or a persistent problem.

Contacts are recorded by every doctor (including locums) but not contacts seen by other practice staff, e.g. practice nurses; health visitors. All doctor contacts (including contacts with temporary residents) arc captured i.e. surgery consultations; clinics; home visits; out of hours (this includes practice patients seen by other doctors, e.g. co-operative doctors).

Each diagnosis is coded using the Read coding system. The data are then entered onto the practice GPASS computer system. Each month, the data are extracted and passed on to ISD where they are cleaned and analysed. There are a considerable number of Read codes available and, for most analyses, individual Read codes are too detailed. There is also considerable scope for variation in the use of codes between different practices. Because of this, analysts and medical staff within ISD have grouped the codes into clinically meaningful conditions to aid the analysis of CMR data.

Information is fed back to the participating practices in the form of individual monthly and quarterly reports. Data from practices funded by health boards are also forwarded to the relevant board: other CMR practices also share data with their board. An ad hoc analysis service is provided by ISD Scotland to the NHSiS in general, from an aggregated, anonymised, central file.

Fur further information contact: Matthew Armstrong

Drug Misuse In Scotland 2001
This is an ISD Scotland National Statistics release

For further information please contact: Elaine Parry