Same Day Emergency Care (SDEC) data collected in ECDS Version 4

Further to the SDEC reporting announcement on 25 November 2025, guidance on reporting specialty SDEC activity in APC is now available: Reporting same day emergency care activity in the admitted patient care data set.

This guidance applies to same day care delivered in specified specialty SDEC facilities as an alternative to inpatient care; it does not apply to Emergency Medicine ambulatory activity delivered by Emergency Medicine clinicians in A&Es (EEMAC) which remains in scope of ECDS. 

The SDEC and ECDS pages on NHS Futures will be updated with supporting information.

Frequently asked questions will be answered on the SDEC forum, but if, after searching, there are still queries, please direct them to [email protected].

Implementation is expected by 1 April 2027.

Same Day Emergency Care (SDEC) is the provision of same day care for emergency patients who would otherwise be admitted to hospital. It aims to benefit both patients and the healthcare system by reducing waiting times and hospital admissions, where appropriate. The recording and submission of SDEC activity is in the process of being migrated from various data sources (such as Admitted Patient Care) to the Emergency Care Data Set (ECDS).

Whilst SDEC activity, department type 05, can already be submitted using ECDS Version 3, it is expected most provider organisations will start submitting as part of their migration to ECDS Version 4. 

There is a requirement for all provider organisations to record SDEC activity as part of their Emergency Care Data Set (ECDS) Version 4 data submission, as published in the Information Standards Notice (Amd 17/2022). The deadline date for this has been extended by 12 months from 1 July 2024 to 1 July 2025. Therefore, providers will continue to be able to submit data using the ECDS v3 schema during this time.

ECDS Version SDEC activity is identified from the following ECDS Department Type values:

05 = Same Day Emergency Care Attendance

06 = EMERGENCY CARE Extended Care Episode

07 = Hot Clinic Attendance. Note this is only valid for piloting purposes and is not yet available

Example scenarios of how SDEC activity can be submitted to ECDS are given in the ‘ECDS User Guidance – Appendix D example scenarios’ document on the ECDS guidance and documents page.

Details of the SDEC methodology and impact on HES: Impact of changes to recording of Same Day Emergency Care Activity on Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) data

Further details about NHS England's Same Day Emergency Care (SDEC).