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Births in Scotland

Annual update to information on births in Scotland. This includes information on the mother, the delivery and the baby, available at various geographies including NHS Board, council area and hospital level.

Further information on these data can be found in the full publication report and the technical report.

Relevant background and metadata can be found in the technical report.

Data and Resources

Additional Info

Field Value
Source Scottish Morbidity Record 02 (SMR02), Scottish Birth Record (SBR) and National Records of Scotland (NRS)
Author Maternity and Births Team
Version 1.0
Last Updated November 28, 2023, 09:32 (GMT)
Created October 12, 2018, 09:53 (BST)
Contact Address Public Health Scotland, Gyle Square, 1 South Gyle Crescent, Edinburgh EH12 9EB
Subject Birth and Maternity
Frequency Annual
Time frame of data and timeliness Publication is generally delayed until SMR02 submission is estimated to be around 95% complete.
Coverage Covers all births in Scotland since 1997.
Completeness There is generally around a 1-4% shortfall in the number of births when compared to NRS birth registrations. Some of this shortfall is due to data on home births not being available from SMR02 and lower submission levels from some NHS Boards. In 2016/17 there was a reported shortfall of 1% between NRS and SMR02.
Accuracy SMR02 data are subjected to validation on submission. The figures are compared to previous figures and expected trends. The SMR02 data are also occasionally assessed for accuracy by PHS`s Data Quality Assurance - see latest report 'Data Quality Assurance (Assessment of Maternity Data)' at: https://beta.isdscotland.org/products-and-services/data-quality-assurance/dqa-assessments/
Continuity of data Data is continuously reported since 1997/98.
Concepts and definitions Concepts and definitions are provided in the technical document (https://publichealthscotland.scot/media/6650/2020-11-24-births-technical.pdf)
Disclosure The PHS statistical disclosure protocol has been followed.
Revision statement Data for the most recent year are generally noted as provisional (due to a small shortfall in completeness of data) at time of publication. The data are then routinely revised at next year's update.
Official statistics designation National Statistics
Relevance and key uses of the statistics Making information publicly available for planning, epidemiology, provision of services, monitoring standards, and the statistics provide comparative information.
Format CSV
Language English
Links

Technical Report

Data Quality Assurance Assessment of Maternity Data (SMR02) 2008 - 2009
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