General practice - disease prevalence data visualisation

About this release

This release by Public Health Scotland shows a data visualisation of Disease Prevalence data from 1 April 2022 to 1 April 2025 extracted from General Practices in Scotland through the Primary Care Information Service (PCIS).

Data are presented at practice, GP cluster, Health and Social Care Partnership (HSCP), NHS Board, and Scotland level for 19 disease indicators, with numbers of patients and rates per 100 population.

The data visualisation can be viewed on the dashboard. The data behind this dashboard are also available as Excel files, which are available to download from the data files section of this page. The methodology and metadata document can be accessed on this page.

Please note that data in this release should not be compared to previous iterations of this publication, due to definitional differences for the disease indicators in this release.

Main points

The dashboard allows a user to see four things:

1. Yearly trend: This allows prevalence comparisons between two practices, two GP clusters, two HSCPs or two NHS Boards, as well as comparisons between each of these and the higher-level geographies in which they are nested. Scotland prevalence can also be viewed. Two age groups can be viewed at once.
2. Prevalence by age: This shows prevalence of a disease across age groups. Prevalence can be compared between years, two practices, two GP clusters, two HSCPs or two NHS Boards, as well as between each of these and the higher-level geographies in which they are nested. Scotland prevalence can also be viewed.
3.  Map: This allows prevalence comparisons between HSCPs and NHS Boards.
4. Data table: Create custom tables looking at specific diseases, age groups, and time periods across practices, GP clusters, HSCPs, NHS Boards and NHS Scotland.

Background

The prevalence for each disease indicator is based on a group of Read codes and drug codes (DM&D), recently reviewed by clinicians, which are recorded in GP clinical systems.

Data on disease prevalence in general practice are constructed to support quality of care within general practice, and they do not necessarily equate to prevalence as may be defined by epidemiologists. These may differ from prevalence figures from other sources due to coding or definitional differences and only include patients who are recorded within a GP clinical system. The asthma prevalence, for example, excludes patients who have not been prescribed asthma-related drugs in the previous twelve months. Care should be taken to understand definitional differences, for example when comparing these data with expected prevalence rates using public health models.

Further information can be found in the Methodology Document and the Read codes list.

Further information

The next release of this publication is planned for summer 2026.