Summary
This publication of the Seven-day Services indicators relates to activity in the period April 2016 to March 2017.
In July 2015 the Secretary of State for Health, Jeremy Hunt, delivered a speech 'Making healthcare more human-centred and not system-centred' (link provided in Related Links). In this speech, he outlined his commitment to seven-day care and highlighted variation in outcomes associated with weekend hospitalisation.
The experimental statistics presented in this report are being published to provide information on how we can effectively measure both improvement and variation in care provision across the week. This report includes indicators on the following topics:
• Mortality within 30 days of admission by week-part of admission to hospital
• Emergency readmissions within seven days of discharge from hospital by day of discharge
• Length of stay following an emergency admission to hospital by day of admission
If variation exists across the week for a particular hospital trust, it should be examined in more detail to understand the causes. The indicators require careful interpretation and should be used in conjunction with other indicators and information from other sources that together form a holistic view of trust outcomes.
Users of these experimental statistics are invited to comment on these findings. In particular, we invite users to consider how they can use this information to improve care, and how NHS Digital can develop these statistics to provide better information to drive improvements in care.
The Department of Health and Social Care (who own and sponsor the Seven-day Services Indicators) are planning to convene a Technical Advisory Group, which will include both academic and clinical experts. The group will provide expert advice to the Department of Health and Social Care and NHS Digital on the further development of the indicator methodologies.
Key Facts
• Patients who were admitted at the weekend had an increased likelihood of mortality within 30 days of admission compared to those who were admitted midweek.
• Patients who were discharged on a Friday, Saturday and Sunday had an increased likelihood of an emergency readmission within seven days of discharge compared to those who were discharged on a Wednesday.
• Patients who were admitted in an emergency stayed slightly longer in hospital if they were admitted on a Saturday or Sunday.
There are many possible explanations for this variation including differences in the case-mix of patients (over and above that accounted for in the analysis), patient behaviour and provision of services both in and outside of the hospital (including social care), but this analysis is unable to determine the causes of the observed variation.
Notes:
1. Approximately one third of records for Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust (trust code RX1) have been submitted without patient identifiers (such as NHS number and date of birth), meaning that a large number of records have been excluded from the analysis because the age of the patient is unknown. The mortality and emergency readmissions results for this trust should therefore be interpreted with caution.
2. Central Manchester University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (trust code RW3) merged with University Hospital of South Manchester NHS Foundation Trust (trust code RM2) on 1st October 2017 to create a new organisation called Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust (trust code R0A). However, as this change occurred after data processing for this publication began, results for these organisations are presented separately. From the next Seven-day Services publication onwards, results will be presented to reflect the new organisational structure.
3. Further information on data quality can be found in Appendix B of the report which can be downloaded from the 'Resources' section of this page.
Last edited: 20 February 2019 4:23 pm