Primary care out of hours

Primary Care Out of Hours Services in Scotland

These pages report statistics on patient contacts at OOH Primary Care Services and COVID Hub/Assessment centres across Scotland during 1 April 2014 to 31 August 2023.  

The information presented includes:

• numbers of contacts at PC OOH
• consultation type
• age band
• deprivation quintile
• sex

Day of week and time of day is also included along with comparative A&E activity data.

Information is presented for Scotland and each NHS Board.

Health and social care

Urgent and emergency care

Excel tables.

Monthly activity data (to be confirmed) and annual demographic updates.

Monthly (to be confirmed).

Activity data is on the first Tuesday of the month, covering the month two months prior to publication (for example, March publication contains the data for January).

The monthly and annual data release is designated as official statistics.

The following uses of the data have been identified:

• information available to OOH to support local delivery of their services
• information to support monitoring of Health Improvement Scotland Quality Indicators for Primary Care Out of Hours Services
• enhance information on patient journeys through unscheduled care services (i.e. include data from OOH primary care services)
• more comprehensive information on patient outcomes following their unscheduled care journey

Other uses of the data include information requests, freedom of information requests, information support to boards and parliamentary questions.

Statistics are presented in summaries that highlight the main headline points from the latest releases.

In order to help users understand and interpret our statistics, further information is contained within this metadata section.

We have also provided a glossary and tried to minimise use of abbreviations and acronyms.

The first data release was published in August 2015.

Trend data available from 1 April 2014.

Under terms of the “Pre-Release Access to Official Statistics (Scotland) Order 2008”, PHS is obliged to publish information on those receiving pre-release access ('pre-release access' refers to statistics in their final form prior to publication).

The standard maximum pre-release access is five working days. Shown below are details of those receiving standard pre-release access.

Standard pre-release access

• Scottish Government Health and Social Care Directorate
• Territorial NHS Board Chief Executives
• Territorial NHS Board Communication leads

It is the policy of PHS to make its websites and products accessible according to our accessibility statement. Graphs and tables have been assessed against PHS accessibility standards.

The PC OOH data is submitted to PHS by and external supplier, ADVANCED, on behalf of NHS boards.

The local system used in each NHS board is ADASTRA. Data is submitted daily for all NHS boards.

All the data is episode-level data.

The A&E data is taken from the A&E datamart and episode-level data only. It excludes approximately 3% of aggregate returns. It includes only unplanned data and excludes Planned codes: New Planned, Recall and Return.

Activity data is on the first Tuesday of the month, covering the month two months prior to publication (for example, March publication for data in January).

Further information is availabel on:

• data items
• codes and definitions

For April 2014 to March 2015 data national submissions were made through GP OOH Interim data files, with only very limited validation to ensure correct coding had been used. 

Since the introduction of the GP OOH Datamart in April 2015, the data now undergoes full validation which ensures that the data is in the correct format and only contains accepted codes

Refer to OOH dataset document which provides a list of accepted format.

If the submission file does not meet all of the validation rules, then the whole file is rejected. 

The resulting errors are reported back to AHC where they must be amended and the file resubmitted. 

Once the file passes validation it is loaded into the datamart where it is then available for analysis and reporting. 

PHS works closely with colleagues in the NHS boards to improve the validation and accuracy of the data and to ensure that the appropriate data standards are understood and applied by all health boards.

Ongoing monitoring of the quality of data covers the completeness, timeliness and accuracy of data recorded.

PHS are not responsible for training issues affecting completion and understanding of ADASTRA.

PHS do however monitor data quality, contacting health boards as required.

During the period March 2020 to March 2022, three NHS boards did not submit COVID Assessment Activity:

• NHS Forth Valley
• NHS Grampian
• NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde (from September 2021 onwards only)

The published statistics for the other parts of the UK are not comparable. Further investigation to clarify differences is ongoing.

England

Public Health England have a GP OOH Surveillance System which provides national weekly data on GP OOH contacts with specific conditions (started in August 2014).

Northern Ireland

Not published

Wales

Do not publish information on GP Out of Hours services in Wales directly. Prior to July 2011 some information was collected on GP Out of Hours services by NHS Direct Wales.

However after this date NHS Direct Wales was no longer responsible for any GP out-of-hours services in Wales and callers were directed to their local health board. Therefore some current data may be available direct from HBs.

Trend data showing number of consultations is robust at a national level.

Standardisation work was introduced in June 2022 to help better identify how 'cases' are measured and this will impact on trend analysis of cases for some NHS boards.

These amendments are usually minor, affecting a small number of records for individual sites or areas.

Any major or significant changes are handled as formal revisions as outlined in PHS Statistical Revisions Policy.

If NHS boards discover that data submitted for publication is incorrect, or that data are missing, further re-submissions can be made up until the publication submission deadline date.

Any revised figures will be highlighted within notes on the affected tables.

Figures contained within each publication may also be subject to change in future releases as submissions may be updated to reflect a more accurate and complete set of data.

No revisions.

• Count of total PC OOH cases and consultations.
• Count of unplanned A&E attendances.
• Numbers for age groups, sex and SIMD categories for PC OOH services.

The PHS Statistical Disclosure Protocol is followed for monthly publication to protect patient confidentiality.