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Publication, Part of

Hospital Accident and Emergency Activity, 2015-16

Official statistics
Publication Date:
Geographic Coverage:
England
Geographical Granularity:
Country, Strategic Health Authorities, NHS Trusts, Hospital Trusts, Independent Sector Health Care Providers
Date Range:
01 Apr 2015 to 31 Mar 2016

Summary

 

This is a report on Accident and Emergency (A&E) activity in English NHS hospitals and English NHS-commissioned activity in the independent sector. This annual publication covers the financial year ending March 2016. It contains final data and replaces the provisional data that are published each month.

The data are taken from the Hospital Episodes Statistics (HES) data warehouse. HES contains records of all admissions, appointments and attendances for patients admitted to NHS hospitals in England.

The HES data used in this publication are called 'attendances', and each A&E attendance relates to a single visit by an individual to A&E. Where follow up care is require and provided by the A&E department, a second planned attendance is recorded. This publication shows the number of attendances during the period, with a number of breakdowns including by arrival method, patient demographics and time spent in A&E. The purpose of this publication is to inform and support strategic and policy-led processes for the benefit of patient care. This document will also be of interest to researchers, journalists and members of the public interested in NHS hospital activity in England.

The publication also includes analysis of the A&E HES data compared to the NHS England Situation Reports (SitReps), the official source of A&E activity information.

 

Highlights

  • There were 20.5 million attendances recorded at Accident and Emergency in England during 2015-16.

  • The number of attendances from April to December increased by 2.2 per cent, from 14.9 million in 2014-15 to 15.2 million in 2015-16. Attendances from January to March increased by 12.2 per cent from 4.6 million in 2014-15 to 5.2 million in 2015-16.

  • The number of arrivals by ambulance (incl. helicopter) increased from 4.5 million in 2014-15 to 4.6 million in 2015-16, although this has fallen as a share of total arrivals (from 23.1 per cent to 22.5 per cent)

  • There were 7.6 million attendances (37.3 per cent) which resulted in a discharge with no follow up, 4.1 million (20.2 per cent) where the patient was admitted, 4.0 million (19.8 per cent) discharged for follow up by GP and 2.6 million (12.7 per cent) where the patient was referred to a specialist clinic or outpatient department.

 

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Last edited: 24 February 2022 4:45 pm