Scottish Government

Monitoring infections is key to helping prevent them. Knowing the number of cases of healthcare associated infections means we can know which areas are doing well and which may benefit from further targeted support.

National Healthcare Associated Infection Monitoring

National healthcare associated infection monitoring is aimed at looking at large scale trends. It concentrates on the bigger picture, focussing on the number of infections across an NHS Board and Scotland as a whole. It is concerned with longer term changes in numbers of infections, and reports less regularly than local monitoring.

Local Monitoring of Healthcare Associated Infections

Local monitoring is used to look at the number of infections in individual hospitals. These are reported on a monthly basis and help to identify short term changes in numbers of infections, which may show that a new prevention programme is being particularly effective, or that a certain hospital needs additional support.