• A&E HES data contains 1.7 million A&E attendances for May 2019 at all types of A&E. However, A&E HES data are incomplete; over 1.93 million A&E attendances were reported in the Department of Health Situation Report data collection for the month, and 60 organisations that report data to Situation Reports did not report data to A&E HES; these organisations are mostly lower acuity services such as minor injury units and walk-in centres.
• Several organisations reported data that did not meet the data quality checks required by A&E indicators. The 95th percentile and longest single wait information are particularly sensitive to poor data quality, outliers and data definitional issues, which contributes to why some unusually high values may be observed for these measures.
• Nationally, 1.9 per cent of attendances at A&E departments were recorded as having left A&E before being seen for treatment, and 8.5 per cent of attendances in A&E in May 2019 were unplanned re-attendances within 7 days of a previous attendance.
• The median average time to initial assessment for attendances brought to A&E by ambulance was 8 minutes, with 95 per cent of patients being assessed within 74 minutes. For all patients receiving treatment, the median average time to treatment was 64 minutes with 95 per cent of patients receiving treatment within 3 hours 51 minutes.
• The median average total time in A&E for all patients was 2 hours 40 minutes, with 95 per cent of patients departing A&E within 8 hours 5 minutes of arrival.
• The Provisional Data Quality Report for Emergency Care Data Set (ECDS) is no longer included within this release. It is now available by using the link in the Related Links Section below.