Scottish Stroke Care Audit



Use of SSCA data in research

The Research Subgroup of the SSCA Steering Committee continues to oversee the use of SSCA data in research. The datasets are primarily available for researchers based in Scotland who have contributed to the audit, but open to other researchers also.

All data is managed according to the Data Protection Act and only accessed in anonymised form by approved researchers who have completed appropriate training. All requests for data access require approval for the Public Benefit and Privacy Panel (http://www.informationgovernance.scot.nhs.uk/pbpphsc/), and current projects have ethical approval from South East Scotland Research Ethics Committee.

This section of the website briefly outlines work undertaken by Chest Heart & Stroke Scotland (CHSS) and Stroke Association funded Fellow Dr Melanie Turner using the SSCA dataset.

Funding from CHSS has facilitated on-going analysis of an SSCA dataset, which has been linked to include SMR01 and National Records of Scotland mortality data.

We have confirmed that stroke unit admission affects outcomes in the Scottish population : http://jnnp.bmj.com/content/jnnp/early/2014/06/25/jnnp-2013-307478.full.pdf - (doi: 10.1136/jnnp-2013-307478). We have published data which shows that while there is a modest increase in mortality in patients admitted out of hours or at weekends, most of this can be ameliorated by early access to a stroke unit (http://jnnp.bmj.com/content/87/2/138). The ‘stroke bundle’ by which stroke care is measured across Scotland has been shown to correlate with stroke outcomes: http://stroke.ahajournals.org/content/46/4/1065 - (https://doi.org/10.1161/STROKEAHA.114.007608). In addition we have confirmed the validity of SSCA data as a resource to investigate stroke in Scotland: https://bmchealthservres.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12913-015-1244-y : (https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-015-1244-y).

Furture work

Dr Melanie Turner has recently obtained a fellowship from the Stroke Association, and will be developing a prediction model for stroke outcome using updated linked datasets.

Further funding has been obtained from CHSS to link the stroke dataset to hospital events, mortality and also dispensing datasets held within ISD. This will allow us to look at the interactions between stroke events and treatment, and also to assess the impact of comorbidities on stroke management and outcome. The research fellow working on this project is Kadie-Ann Sterling.

Other ongoing projects

Additional projects include a linkage to the PACS dataset to assess outcomes in patients with intracerebral haemorrhage (PI: Professor Rustam Salman Al-Shahi, University of Edinburgh), linkage to the SCI-DC Diabetes dataset to look at the impact of diabetes on stroke and outcomes (PI: Professor Sarah Wild, University of Edinburgh), and a linkage between SSCA and the Scottish Renal Registry (PI: Mark Findlay, University of Glasgow).

Further Information

The Scottish Stroke Care Audit (SSCA) welcomes opportunities to collaborate with colleagues to further understanding of stroke care.

If you are interested in using SSCA data for research purposes, please access the:

Please return completed forms to the Scottish National Audit Programme mailbox: phs.snap@phs.scot for consideration.

We are happy to provide appropriate colleagues in each hospital with more detailed Management Information data from the audit to help manage patients at your site. Please contact phs.strokeaudit@phs.scot in the first instance.

List of Publications

Turner, M., Barber, M., Dodds, H., Murphy, D. & Scottish Stroke Care Audit (2015). 'Implementing a Simple Care Bundle Is Associated With Improved Outcomes in a National Cohort of Patients With Ischemic Stroke'. Stroke, vol 46, no. 4, pp. 1065-1070.

Turner, M., Barber, M., Dodds, H., Martin, D., Langhorne, P. & Macleod, M. (2015). 'Agreement between routine electronic hospital discharge and Scottish Stroke Care Audit (SSCA) data in identifying stroke in the Scottish population'. BMC Health Services Research, vol 15, 583.

MacLeod, MJ. & Turner, M. (2015). 'Stroke: Stroke outcomes after 90 days-out of sight, out of mind?'. Nature Reviews Neurology, vol 11, no. 4, pp. 187-188.

Turner, M., Barber, M., Dodds, H., Dennis, M., Langhorne, P. & MacLeod, MJ. (2015). 'The impact of stroke unit care on outcome in a Scottish stroke population, taking into account case mix and selection bias'. Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry, vol 86, no. 3, pp. 314-318.

Turner, M., Barber, M., Dodds, H., Dennis, M., Langhorne, P., MacLeod, M-J & Scottish Stroke Care Audit (2016). 'Stroke patients admitted within normal working hours are more likely to achieve process standards and to have better outcomes'. Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry, vol 87, no. 2, pp. 138-143.