Mental health bed census 2014

Scotland’s Mental Health Strategy for 2012-2015 is the successor document to Delivering for Mental Health and Towards a Mentally Flourishing Scotland[. It builds on that work as well as on policy and service improvements taken forward alongside those main policy documents.

A range of commitments were identified for the period of the strategy.  The ‘Mental Health and Learning Disability Bed Census: One Day Audit’ and the ‘Mental Health and Learning Disability patients: Out of Scotland and Out of NHS Placements Census’ directly focus on Commitment 26:

“We will undertake an audit of who is in hospital on a given day and for what reason to give a better understanding of how the inpatient estate is being used and the degree to which that differs across Scotland.”

Objectives

• To co-ordinate an audit, nationally, of the bed estate across Scotland to provide an understanding of who is in hospital on a given day and for what reason.
• The analysis of this information will provide a detailed understanding of how the inpatient estate in Scotland is being used and the degree to which that differs across Scotland.
• In addition to those within Health Board beds, it will be important to identify where patients are ‘out of area’ in specialist beds, boarding across Scotland and in specialist placements beyond Scotland.

Data will be provided by NHS Boards to the Scottish Government using established statistical data collections methods.