Quality of National Records of Scotland (NRS) Data on Deaths

The following PDF documents provide information on:

• Comparisons of NRS Data with NHS Data (PDF 19 Kb) 
• Some Specific Checks Carried Out on Deaths Data (PDF 17 Kb)
• The quality of some of the items of information about Deaths held in the Vital Events statistical database (PDF 40 Kb)

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Also relevant are:

• The pages within the General Background Information section which provides information about the quality of the data obtained from the registration of births, stillbirths, marriages, civil partnerships and deaths and checking the quality of NRS statistical data on Vital Events.
• The information about the fluctuations in death statistics, particularly when the numbers are small.

In addition, users of statistics about causes of death may be interested in a report on the introduction, by NRS of the Tenth Revision of the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD-10). NRS changed from using ICD-9 to ICD-10 with effect from 1st January 2000, and retrospectively recoded the data for 1999 using ICD-10, in order to assess the effect of the change. The report discussed how the introduction of ICD-10, and some new rules, affected the coding of particular causes of death. It included tables of the numbers of deaths (e.g.) cross-classified by ICD-9 and ICD-10 chapters, to show the scale of the effects of the change. The report forms Appendix 2 of the Registrar General's Annual Report for 2000, which is available on this website.

Reports on changes to the coding of causes of death between 2010 and 2011, and between 2016 and 2017, following changes to the automatic cause of death coding software, are available via the Death Certificates and Coding the Causes of Death page.

The quality of some of the deaths data that are collected by NRS should be improving following the introduction, in May 2015, of independent checks on the accuracy of a sample of Medical Certificates of the Cause of Death, subsequent feedback to doctors and Health Boards, and the provision of educational sessions and material on death certification. Information about the work of the Death Certification Review Service is available on the Healthcare Improvement Scotland website.