Hospital inpatient statistics

Information on all hospital admissions is collected by the Information & Statistics Division (ISD Scotland).

Tables 31a and 31b are derived from the Scottish Morbidity Record (SMR01). 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 be 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 (ICD) and from April 1996 the codes used were ICD version 10 which are not strictly comparable with the ICD9 codes used prior to that year.

Table 32 is derived from the mental health inpatient and day case record (SMR04) which records information at admission and discharge. This table excludes psychiatric inpatient admissions with a main diagnosis of Drug Misuse at the State Hospital at Carstairs. As stated in the text above some caution is necessary when using these data (see note a and b).

Table 31a Non-psychiatric admissions for Drug Misuse; drug type : 1997/98

health board and council area of residence; age group and sex

Table 31b Non-psychiatric admissions for Drug Misuse; length of stay:1997/98

health board and council area of residence; age group and sex

Table 32 Psychiatric inpatient admissions with a main admission diagnosis of Drug Misuse; drug type : 1997/98