Provisional Monthly Hospital Episode Statistics for Admitted Patient Care, Outpatients and Accident and Emergency Data - April 2012 to October 2012

Monthly HES data for Admitted Patient Care

In the year from Nov. 2011 to Oct. 2012 there were:

• 17.8 million finished consultant episodes (FCEs)², 59.7 per cent (10.6 million) of which included at least one procedure or intervention, and 6.1 million of which were day cases.                              

• 15.2 million finished admission episodes (FAEs)³, of which 5.3 million were emergency admissions.       

Monthly HES - Admitted Patient Care Clinical Coding Coverage

The shortfall between the most recent month's data is more pronounced when considering clinical (procedures and diagnoses) coverage. 2.1 per cent more procedures and 4.6 per cent more diagnoses were coded in the HES data submitted to SUS by 21/12/2012 (Month 8) - extract used for this publication, compared to the HES data submitted to SUS by 22/11/2012 (Month 7) used for 15 January 2013 publication.  We accordingly recommend extra caution using clinical codes for the most recent months data.                          

Monthly HES data for Outpatients

In the year from Nov. 2011 to Oct. 2012 there were:

• 92.9 million outpatient appointments made, with 74.5 million (80.1 per cent) of these attended by the patient.                                   

• 6.8 million outpatient appointments not attended by the patient, representing 7.3 per cent of all appointments.

Provisional Monthly HES data for Accident & Emergency (Experimental data)

In the year from Nov. 2011 to Oct. 2012 there were:

• 18.1 million A&E attendances³ recorded in A&E HES. Of these 3.8 million (20.8 per cent) resulted in admission to hospital for inpatient treatment, 3.6 million (20.0 per cent) resulted in a GP follow up, and 7.0 million (38.8 per cent) were discharged with no follow up.

Monthly topic of interest - Outpatients

For the period November 2011 to October 2012:

• There were 74,454,896 outpatient attendances, compared to 71,114,398 for the previous 12 months, an increase of 4.7 per cent.

• The age group with the most attendances was 65-69 (6,134,166; 8.2 per cent). However, for females most attendances were for those aged 30-34 (3,621,888; 8.4 per cent) largely due to obstetric and gynaecological attendances.

• For males aged 20 to 24, approximately one in six (203,716; 16.2 per cent) did not attend their outpatient appointment compared to 7.3 per cent (6,760,369) of all outpatients.

• Compared to the same period a year earlier the main consultant specialties with the greatest increase in attendances include Allied Health Professional episodes (increased 1,057,165; 17.6 per cent) and nursing episodes (increased 765,927; 21.4 per cent). The specialty with the greatest decrease in attendances was Adult mental illness (decreased 166,333; 10.4 per cent).

• For all first attendances nearly two thirds (61.8 per cent; 13,134,143) had to wait less than one month to attend their outpatient appointment, 94.8 per cent (20,139,036) waited under 3 months and 98.5 per cent (20,933,121) under 6 months. This is very similar to the same period a year earlier.