Health and Social Care Statistics Plan 2026-2027

Foreword

We collect, analyse and publish data to inform health and social care policy and service delivery. Our work supports evidence-based decision-making to understand and improve population health, reduce health inequalities, enhance health and social care services and helps track progress on national priorities. 

Scottish Government Official Statistics on Health and Social Care are produced in line with the three pillars of the Code of Practice for Statistics:

• Trustworthiness – commitment to integrity and transparency.
• Quality – applying professional judgement to prepare, analyse and publish statistics in ways that meet user needs.
• Value – developing statistics in response to stakeholder needs.

Publishing a statistics plan demonstrates openness and transparency about progress toward priorities and enables users and stakeholders to help shape future work.

About Health and Social Care Statistics

The analytical function in DG Health and Social Care is comprised of two Divisions:

• Health and Social Care Analysis (HSCA) provides data, evidence and analysis for Ministers and officials to inform health and social care strategy, policy and legislation. This includes statistics, social research, modelling and economic analysis.
• Whole Systems Intelligence and Analysis (WSIA) has a specific role in providing operational and performance data and intelligence from across the health and social care system. This also includes operational and system focused research and modelling.

Our overarching aim is to develop our analytical programme to support, inform and monitor the delivery of a whole‑system programme to improve outcomes, reduce inequalities and deliver a shared Health and Social Care Vision: “A Scotland where people live longer, healthier and more fulfilling lives, now and in the future.” 

The work undertaken by statisticians is guided by the strategic priorities for the Scottish Government Statistics Group:

• Ensuring value for users is central to the work undertaken
• Realising efficiency by streamlining what we do
• Maximising the use of the data we hold
• Being people focused and making the most of our statisticians’ skills

Other organisations also publish evidence relating to health and social care in Scotland. These include:

• Public Health Scotland (PHS) – publishes a range of data relating to health and social care.
• NHS Scotland Workforce Data – intelligence on the healthcare workforce.
• Care Inspectorate – publishes a range of statistics relating to care services.
• Scottish Social Services Council (SSSC) – the regulator for the social work, social care and children and young people workforce.
• Improvement Service – organisation for Local Government improvement.
• National Records of Scotland (NRS) – collects, preserves, and publishes information about Scotland's people and history.

Official Statistics Publications for 2026-2027

Scottish Government Health and Social Care Statistics publications are announced in a published 12-month calendar of forthcoming publications. This includes Official and Accredited Official Statistics publications, and Management Information publications. We aim to provide a provisional publication date for official statistics at least twelve months before publication. A finalised publication date and time is confirmed at least four weeks before release, where possible. Updates to the forthcoming publications calendar are made regularly. The timetable also includes releases for other official statistics producers in Scotland, such as Public Health Scotland and National Records of Scotland. 

Some of the major releases over 2026-2027 include:

Scottish Health Survey

Results from the 2025 Scottish Health Survey will be published in October/November 2026. The Scottish Health Survey dashboard will be updated at the same time to include additional indicators, further breakdowns of the 2025 data and indicators for health boards and local authorities for 2022-2025 combined.

Health and Care Experience Survey (HACE)

The latest results of HACE 2025 to 2026 were published on 26 May 2026. The publication consisted of a National Report, a Technical Report, an interactive dashboard and supporting spreadsheets containing survey results broken down by demographic characteristic. Additional analysis of un/under-met social care needs was included in the publication for the first time. 

Additional analysis of HACE: support needs among unpaid carers

The results of further analysis of the HACE 2025-2026 data will be published in the second half of 2026. They will focus on providing insights into the support needs of unpaid carers.

Maternity Care Survey (MCS)

The results of the 2025 Maternity Care Survey will be published in the second half of 2026.

Adult Support and Protection (ASP) National Minimum Dataset

Statistical publication on ASP activity in Scotland in 2025-2026, presenting data gathered through the ASP National Minimum Dataset. This is the second release of this data and is at national level only. Expected release in Autumn 2026. These are Official Statistics in Development.

Free Personal and Nursing Care

Accredited Official Statistics, annual release, detailing the numbers of clients receiving free personal and nursing care (FPNC) in care homes and associated estimated cost, together with the numbers of clients, hours and estimated cost of free personal care provided at home. Data for 2025-2026 expected for release in Autumn 2026.

Carers Census

Census of unpaid carers being supported by local authorities and carer centres across Scotland, data for 2025-2026 is expected to be published in December 2026 and is at national level only.

Alcohol and Drugs

The level of harms from alcohol and drugs in Scotland are high in comparison to the rest of the UK and Europe and Scottish Government statisticians produce several publications to support openness and transparency about progress in this policy area. Statistical publications in 2026-2027 will include the findings of the 2025-2026 Alcohol and Drug Partnerships (ADP) Annual Survey, updated Residential Rehabilitation Bed Capacity in Scotland statistics and analysis of progress of the Scottish Government’s National Mission to reduce drug deaths and improve the lives of people affected by drugs.

Mental Health Inpatient Census (MHIC)

The annual MHIC provides a detailed picture of patients in mental health, addiction, and learning disability beds funded by NHS Scotland. The resulting statistics inform policy development and support service planning by offering insights into these services and the individuals who use them. Findings from 2026 MHIC will be published in spring 2027.

Improvements in our data and statistics

Health and Care Experience Survey (HACE)

We have sourced more up to date information on the proportion of patients on the GP list who have received a direct consultation through the Primary Care Intelligence Service (PCIS) and have used this more up-to-date information in the calculation of the weights. Although the PCIS data is in development, it is more reliable now than the Practice Team Information (PTI) data which is out of date and no longer recommended for use.

We now have more detailed information on age band, with new 65-74, 75-84 and 85+ age bands.

Scottish Health Survey

The Scottish Health Survey team will produce and publish the 2025 survey reports in-house for the first time. Reproducible Analytical Pipelines are being developed to simplify data analysis processes and automate table production, saving time and reducing the scope for errors. The report tables will be published in a more accessible format.

Neurological Conditions prevalence

We have sourced via the PHS Primary Care Intelligence Service (PCIS) an extract of the number of registered patients with a diagnosis ever recorded for a number of specified neurological conditions. This repeats a data extract provided in 2022 and shows a major increase in the percentage of registered patients covered in the extract, from 72.7% to 99%. This provides a much better understanding of GP-recorded prevalence of neurological conditions. A report on this data will be published in 2026.

Primary Care Improvement Plans – implementation progress

We support the collection and publication of this data, as management information, to inform progress towards implementation of Memorandum of Understanding: GMS Contract Implementation for Primary Care Improvement. We have undertaken a range of improvements to the data collection process to minimise burden on data providers and to improve the quality of the data provided. We will continue to explore alternative sources for this data, utilising existing operational data where possible.

Alcohol and Drugs

A key focus during 2026-2027 will be the development of an analytical programme to support the Scottish Government’s Preventing Harm, Promoting Recovery: Scotland’s Alcohol and Drugs Strategic Plan 2026-2035. This is part of Scotland’s broader public health ambitions including the Population Health Framework and the Service Renewal Framework.

Mental Health

The analysis of the Mental Health Inpatient Census has mainly been migrated to a Reproducible Analytical Pipeline over the last two years, integrated with markdown to write the report. This will be extended to also deal with data requests from Health Boards and NRS. There are ongoing discussions to extend the scope of the questions to try and capture data on those waiting to be admitted.

Care Home Data

We are taking forward the recommendations from the multi‑agency Care Home Data Review. The group includes representatives from across the care home sector. Some of the recommendations may result in significant changes to how data are collected, shared, communicated and used across the sector. The initial priorities are to simplify the data landscape, reduce the burden on care providers, and improve consistency and insight from the data. This work to improve care home data forms part of a wider programme to transform social care data in Scotland. The programme is overseen by the Social Care Data and Intelligence Programme Board (SCDIPB).

Carers Census

Improvement work on the Carers Census commenced in Spring 2026, engaging with stakeholders and working with SCDIPB and the Right to Breaks Steering Group to improve the accuracy and utility of the collection.

Adult Support and Protection (ASP)

As the ASP national minimum dataset is relatively new, data is currently published at a national level only. Work will continue throughout 2026-2027 on improving the robustness of local level data. Regular data provider workshops are scheduled throughout the year and will be key to the discussions around definitions and consistency. The aim is to improve consistency to allow for publication of robust local authority-level data. Unpublished data at the local authority level will be shared as management information with the data providers as part of this engagement, as well as to inform local work on ASP.

Free Personal and Nursing Care (FPNC)

Through 2026-2027 we will be engaging with data providers and other stakeholders to try to improve the completeness of the data returned for this collection. We will also be seeking views from key data users on their requirements.

How the FPNC data will be collected in the future will be considered as part of the wider programme to transform social care data in Scotland.

Creating Insights from Data

Creating Insights from Data collaborative will continue to work with partners across PHS, Public Services Delivery Scotland and the national Centre for Sustainable Delivery to drive improvements in health and social care system data as outlined in the Health and Social Care data strategy. This work focusses on:

• how we provide data as part of an analytical pipeline; removing siloed structures, produced once and used for multiple suitable purposes
• setting clear pathways to commissioning analytical work
• moving towards a whole-system approach to developing intelligence that can be utilised to improve health and social care.