Source : General acute hospital inpatient statistics (SMR01)

Data for individual patients are collected by ISD Scotland as a series of Scottish Morbidity Records (SMR).

The SMR datasets constitute a significant local and national information resource, and are used for epidemiological monitoring, health needs assessment, national and local planning and a range of other applications.

SMR01 is an episode-based patient record relating to all inpatients and day cases discharged from specialties other than mental health, maternity, neonatal and geriatric longstay specialties in the NHSiS. A record is generated for each inpatient and day case episode, of which there are about 1,000,000 each year. The SMR01 basic data set encompasses patient identification and demographic information, episode management information and general clinical information. Items such as waiting time for inpatient / day case admission and length of stay may be derived from the episode management information.

Information about patients admitted to general hospitals (mainly for emergency treatment), where drug misuse is diagnosed as a factor in the patient's need for treatment, is routinely available. Some caution is necessary when using these data as (a) drug misuse may only be suspected and may not always be recorded by the hospital, and (b) where drug misuse is recorded, it may not he possible to identify which drug(s) were involved. Drug misuse is recorded on SMR returns using the codes available in the International Classification of Diseases (lCD) and from April 1996 the codes used were lCD version 10, which are not strictly comparable with the ICD9 codes used prior to that year.

For further information contact: David Murphy

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

For further information please contact: Elaine Parry