Mental health bed census 2014

General

Q: The NHS Board that I work for would like to make a single data submission for all hospitals in the NHS Board. How do I do this?

A: It is not possible to do this, as the data collection system has been set up to collect data at hospital level. You will need to make a separate submission for each hospital in the NHS Board.

Q: We have multiple users within one hospital wishing to edit the data at the same time.  Is this possible?

A: No this is not possible. Like all IT systems, a version of the data needs to be managed.  To do this the system will automatically lock so that only the first user that logs in for a hospital/health board can edit the data. When edits are complete the user must unlock the account. To do this go to Menu, Data Returns, Manage Returns and then click on select within the blue action buttons. This will present more detailed tables and new blue action buttons - see the image below. Select “unlock” (bottom right hand corner). The next person to successfully log in for that hospital will then be locked in and allowed to make edits.

Hospital list

Q: The list of hospitals for my NHS Board includes one or more hospitals that do not have any mental health, learning disability or addiction beds.  What should I do?

A: Please send an e-mail to Raymond Buckley with a list of all hospitals that do not have any mental health, learning disability or addiction beds.  Raymond will arrange for these to be removed, so that they will not be available in the data collection system.

Clarification of data item descriptions

Q: Data item 'Postcode of patient's home address on date of audit if changed from admission' - in what circumstances would this be different from their address on admission?

A: This data item is intended to capture scenarios where the patient’s address has changed since admission.  For example, a patient may no longer be able to go back to the same home address they had on admission, or their home postcode may have become the hospital postcode for some long term inpatients.

Only changes to the patient’s home postcode should be recorded, not moves to a different ward or hospital since the patient’s initial admission.

Q: Data field ‘Postcode of Patient’s home address’ – the postcode of a patient is unknown. What should I do?

A: If the patient’s postcode is unknown and all reasonable means of attempting to trace the address have been exhausted then please enter the following in the postcode field: NK01 0AA. If the patient has no fixed abode then NF1 1AB should be entered instead.

Q: Data item 'Admission Date' - what admission date should be entered for a patient who has moved between wards since being admitted to the hospital?

A: The date on which the patient was initially admitted to the hospital, irrespective of any moves between wards within the hospital that have happened since then.

Q: Data field ‘Total Psychiatric Admissions in last year’ – should I include patients who were admitted before 30th Oct 2013 in this total number?

A: Any patients admitted before 30th Oct 2013 (i.e they have been continuously in a location(s) (hospital / care home) as an inpatient for at least a year) should be returned as having ‘0’  in the ‘Total Psychiatric Admissions in last year’ field.

Q: Data item 'Crisis Contact' - none of the data items are relevant to a patient who has been in hospital for a number of years.  What should be reported in this field?

A: If the patient has not had any contact with a crisis team or service (as defined below), then enter ‘No’ for that patient.

Definition of Crisis Team: Provides a brief intervention service to patients suffering from acute mental health distress as an alternative to hospital admission, with a maximum target response time of four hours. It offers a gatekeeping function to beds through intensive interventions to support patients in their own environment. The service should be provided twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. It features a multi-disciplinary (multi-agency) approach to delivering a service to its geographical area.

(from the Mental Health Benchmarking Project Technical Appendix: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Resource/Doc/212523/0056527.pdf)

Q: Data field ‘Date of crisis date discharge’ is not applicable to a patient and has been left blank. However, a validation error has been reported – what should I do?

A: If the data field ‘date of crisis date discharge’ is not applicable it should be left blank and any validation error reported should be ignored.

Q: Data item ‘Anticipated total length of stay’ - what does this mean?

A: The period of time from the patient’s admission to their current location (hospital/care home) until when they are expected to leave this location.

Q: Data item ‘Anticipated total length of stay’ - this will be difficult to determine for some patients.  In particular, there are some patients (e.g. old age, continuing care) who are likely to stay at the location indefinitely.  Do you have any further guidance on how to complete this data item?

A: The value for this data item is subjective, and we recognise that this will be difficult to determine for some patients.  Ward staff should use their judgement to provide their best estimate of when a patient will leave or be discharged.

If the patient is expected to stay at their current location indefinitely or for more than 5 years, please enter 5 years for this data item.  (We will group the data when analysing this data item, and any values of 5 years and over will be treated as ‘long term’.)

Q: Data field ‘Mental Health/Learning Disability diagnosis on admission’ – due to continuing assessment the patient does not have a relevant diagnosis code (ICD10 Codes, F00-F99). What should I do?

A:If the patient does not have a relevant diagnosis code (F code) then please enter a relevant assessment code (Z code) into the ICD10 ‘code only’ field and leave the ‘full description’ field blank. A validation error will appear because a ‘Z’ code has been submitted – please ignore this error message.

Q: Data item 'Other diagnosis - co-morbidities including sensory impairment/physical impairment/acquired brain injury' - should this field be used where the patient is registered blind or hard of hearing, but not where the patient wears a hearing aid or requires glasses?

A: This is correct - this field is intended to pick up those patients who are registered blind, registered partially sighted, hard of hearing or have some physical illness or disability, not if they just wear glasses or require a hearing aid.

Q: Data field ‘Subject to other legislation’ – a patient is not subject to any legislation. What should I do?

A: In the event a patient is not subject to any legislation, please leave the ‘Subject to other legislation’ blank. Please ignore any validation error that may be reported following this.

Q: I need to put multiple values into a free text field (e.g. ‘other diagnosis - co morbidities as at census date) - how should these be separated?

A: Separate the values with a comma (e.g. High blood pressure, Acute pericarditis, Acute bronchitis)

Questions relating to the template spreadsheet

Q: What version of Microsoft Excel is required to use the template spreadsheets?

A: The templates are in ‘XML Spreadsheet 2003’ format, which should work in Excel 2003 and all later versions.  There have, however, been reports that some users have not been able to open the templates.  Please get in touch with Raymond Buckley if you continue to have issues.

If you are using Excel 2003, please note that it is no longer supported by Microsoft - if you are having problems with the template, we encourage you to get in touch with your IT department as soon as possible to install a newer version.

Q: What should be entered in the ‘Organisation Unique ID field’?

A: Main census: The code for the hospital where the patient is undergoing NHS health care.

Outwith Scotland or out with the NHS census: The code for the health board which is responsible for overseeing the care of the patient (irrespective of the location where the patient is being treated).

Q: I’m putting a CHI number starting with a zero into the template spreadsheet.  The leading zero disappears when I enter the value.  What can I do to stop this?

A: Updated versions of the template spreadsheets that correct this issue are now available on the Technical Documentation page.

Q: I've downloaded the most recent version of the spreadsheet template for the main census, and have copied over data from an older version of the template.  I'm now having problems on the PatientDetails sheet - there are data validation errors for valid data, and some of the drop-down menus are giving the wrong options for the field.  How do I fix this?

A: Older versions of the main census spreadsheet template include a column that should not be there ('Boarding in from other hospital - Ward should have been admitted to', with a drop-down menu of ward types - this will be column 41/AO).  This column has been removed, and the free text field in the next column renamed.

Copying data from an old version of the template and pasting it directly into the new version will overwrite the data validation and drop-down menus in the new version of the template - you can avoid this by pasting the data using Paste Special - Values.