Daily net hospital COVID-19 admissions and discharges: FOI release

Information requested

Request 1

• For the period 1st March to the latest date available, the daily net admission and discharges (not gross) of those with confirmed or suspected Covid-19 to hospitals in Scotland by Health Board.
• The ages of those admitted and discharged.
• The destination of those discharged e.g. home, care home, etc
• The number of people in hospital each day who had been admitted with Covid-19 symptoms, or had contracted Covid 19 while in hospital and who then remained in hospital for more than a week after a negative test for PCR.

Request 2

• Evidence as to the effectiveness of the Covid -19 test to include the level of false positives and false negatives split by those who are symptomatic and asymptomatic  

Response

Request 1

For the period 1st March to the latest date available, the daily net admission and discharges (not gross) of those with confirmed or suspected Covid-19 to hospitals in Scotland by Health Board.

The Scottish Government published data daily on the number of people in hospital and ICU with COVID-19 by Health Board at the following link:
https://www.gov.scot/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-trends-in-dailydata/

This measure has recently changed definition, the following blog post gives the reason behind these changes:
https://blogs.gov.scot/statistics/2020/09/15/counting-people-in-hospital-with-covid-19/

Public Health Scotland publishes data on the number of daily COVID-19 admissions to hospital at the following link, however this data is not available by Health Board:
https://beta.isdscotland.org/findpublications-and-data/population-health/covid-19/covid-19-statistical-report/9-september-2020/dashboard/

The ages of those admitted and discharged.

Public Health Scotland publish the age distribution of those patients admitted to hospital with Covid-19 in their weekly COVID-19 statistical report supplementary tables each week:
https://beta.isdscotland.org/find-publications-and-data/population-health/covid-19/covid-19-statistical-report/9-september-2020/

The destination of those discharged e.g. home, care home, etc

Public Health Scotland are due to publish a report on 28 October 2020 on discharges from NHS hospitals to care homes between March 1 2020 and 31 May 2020:
https://beta.isdscotland.org/forthcoming-publications/

The number of people in hospital each day who had been admitted with Covid-19 symptoms, or had contracted Covid 19 while in hospital and who then remained in hospital for more than a week after a negative test for PCR.

Public Health Scotland publish the cumulative and weekly number of hospital onset COVID-19 cases in Scotland by Health Board at the following link:
https://beta.isdscotland.org/find-publications-anddata/population-health/covid-19/hospital-onset-covid-19-cases-in-scotland/

Request 2

Evidence as to the effectiveness of the Covid -19 test to include the level of false positives and false negatives split by those who are symptomatic and asymptomatic

Public Health Scotland has responsibility for providing statistical information and whilst our aim is to provide information whenever possible, the Scottish Government does not hold this information.
In the case of weakly detected positive results (i.e. not true current infection), the sample is reprocessed and if, when more detailed virology analysis has been undertaken, it is assessed that there is no current infection or infectivity present, then the original test will be taken as a false positive, de-notified, and removed from the confirmed case tally. However, where it is not possible to reprocess the test or carry out more detailed analysis, then the original test cannot be de-notified and the weak positive will remain recorded in the case tally.

This process is undertaken in relation to statistics published for daily and weekly tests carried out through both the NHS and the UK Government Extended Testing Programme in Scotland
(here: https://www.gov.scot/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-daily-data-for-scotland/)

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The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at http://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.