Reporting rates of influenza-like illness (ILI) consultations from General Practitioners in Scotland – technical document

We regularly report ​consultation rates for ILI in primary care. This is the key measure of influenza activity in the community and is used to gauge the severity of influenza seasons in Scotland each winter. It is also used for comparison of influenza activity across the UK and Europe.

This report provides background to reporting of primary care consultation rates for ILI in Scotland. Specifically, this report provides detail on:

• background
• description of the 2017/18 data issues and end of season revision of ILI consultation rates
• Moving Epidemic Method (MEM) for the calculation of epidemic and intensity thresholds
• application of MEM to Scottish data
• description of the data to be used for the 2018/19 season