Update (25 Aug 2015) An error was identified in Table 7 of the Provider Level Analysis, where values suppressed as part of disclosure control were not included in the numerator for 'percentage within 4 hours'. Overall, a quarter of all providers listed were affected, ranging from minimal impact on most providers (less than one percentage point variation) to moderate impact on some smaller providers (up to twelve percentage points variation).

This is the fourth annual publication of the Accident and Emergency (A&E) Attendance data within Hospital Episodes Statistics (HES). It covers the period April 2010 to March 2011 and draws on 16.2 million detailed records of attendances at major A&E departments, single specialty A&E departments, minor injuries units and walk-in centres in England.

Publishing the A&E HES data, as experimental statistics, enables initial conclusions to be presented for discussion and aims to promote and highlight the uses of this potentially rich data set. During the period covered by this publication, not all providers have completed data submissions and data quality is poor in some cases.

The publication also includes analysis of the A&E HES data compared to the Quarterly Monitoring of Accident and Emergency (QMAE) return, the official source of A&E information, to highlight areas for further investigation.

NHS organisations can review their own data to ascertain the extent to which their local trend follows the national pattern. This can be done by using the accompanying interactive Provider level analysis file.

The full report and accompanying tables are also available on our dedicated website HESonline, along with inpatient, outpatient and maternity data.