The Brain Health Data Pilot (BHDP) project aims to be a shared database (like a library) of information for scientists studying brain health, especially for diseases like dementia, which affects about 900,000 people in the UK. Its main feature is a huge collection of brain images linked to routinely collected health records, both from NHS Scotland, which will help scientists learn more about dementia and other brain diseases. What is special about this database is that it will get better over time – as scientists use it and add their discoveries, it becomes more valuable.

This is a subset of the General Acute Inpatient and Day Case - Scottish Morbidity Record (SMR01) dataset for use in the Brain Health Data Pilot (BHDP) project.

The dataset contains patient identifiers such as name, date of birth, Community Health Index number, NHS number, postcode and ethnicity and episode management data. Of particular interest to researchers would be variables such as where the episode took place, admission type (includes patient injury classifications such as self-inflicted or home accident), waiting times, patients condition (as classified under ICD-10), operations, and discharge location. A wide variety of geographical data is also included in the dataset including Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation and Carstairs measures, census output area, NHS Board, Electoral Ward and Parliamentary constituency.