SUMMARY

This is the first annual report describing a national surveillance scheme for Scotland. This scheme collects data on invasive Staphylococcus aureus and Streptococcus pneumoniae from all NHS clinical microbiology laboratories. During 2003, 1627 S.aureus isolates were received. Six hundred and sixty eight (41%) of these were resistant to methicillin; 487 (73%) were EMRSA-15, 163 (24%) were EMRSA-16 and 18 (3%) were of other types. Six hundred and thirty S.pneumoniae isolates were received during 2003. Nineteen (3.1%) were non-susceptible to penicillin and 75 (12.3%) were non-susceptible to erythromycin. These data provide a baseline for surveillance and a means for the identification of significant trends for the future