Scottish Atlas of Healthcare Variation
An Official Statistics publication for Scotland
- Published
- 06 December 2022
- Type
- Statistical report
- Author
- Public Health Scotland
Mental health dashboard
February 2026 – Following the most recent Scottish Atlas of Healthcare Variation publication in May 2025, the Scottish Government undertook a survey and evaluation to gather views of healthcare professionals on the usability and impact of the Atlas and to ascertain whether the Atlas is viewed as an effective tool to help identify and tackle unwarranted variation. The evaluation highlighted lower than anticipated levels of engagement with and utilisation of the Atlas. Following consideration of the evaluation recommendations, the Chief Medical Officer has decided that further investment in the Atlas should pause. As a result, there are no plans to undertake any further updates or revisions to the Atlas at this time and PHS will focus on alternative ways of supporting work on this topic.
Dashboard latest release 24 September 2019.
The Scottish Atlas of Healthcare Variation aims to highlight geographical variation that exists in the provision of health services and associated health outcomes.
The tool is designed to highlight variation and no judgement on the performance or inferences on quality of care of one geographical area against another should be concluded.
Revised 16 October 2019
The length of stay figures have been updated as the full length of stay was not included for some patients in the original publication data. The antidepressant measure has been amended to present the rate 'per 1,000 population' to ensure consistency with the other prescribing maps; the underlying data has not changed.
Supporting documents
