*NHS Digital must be cited as the source of this information
*Provider level data are available
10 January 2017: New official figures published today provide details of Accident and Emergency activity in NHS hospitals in England during 2015-16.
The publication "Hospital Accident and Emergency Activity, 2015-16" describes Accident and Emergency Activity in NHS hospitals. It does not include statistics relating to inpatient episodes or outpatient attendances - these can be found in other publications.
The report contains high-level and provider level details of:
- Patient gender and age group
- Hour of arrival
- Day of arrival
- Method of arrival
- Comparison with attendances recorded in A&E Sit Reps
- Duration to assessment, treatment and departure
- Method of discharge
The data source for this publication is Hospital Episode Statistics (HES), which comes from the HES data warehouse held by NHS Digital containing details of all admissions, outpatient appointments and accident and emergency (A&E) attendances at NHS hospitals in England.
Each record in HES includes a range of information including demographic details of the patient, when they were treated and what they were treated for. This publication releases some high level analyses of HES data relating to A&E attendances in NHS hospitals, minor injury units and walk-in centres. As such, it is different from the process used for collecting data for the A&E Situation Reports (Sit Reps) published by NHS England. Sit Reps are based on counts made in local NHS organisations and submitted to NHS England in aggregate form, rather than from patient level data.
The aggregate Sit Rep data should be used in preference to A&E HES for information that is held in both data sets, such as total attendances. HES enables more detailed breakdowns on many specific areas. The majority of the difference in totals between the two collections is due to type 3 A&E departments (minor injury units and walk in centres) that submit data to Sit Reps but not to A&E HES.
The report can be downloaded at: https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20180328130852tf_/http:/content.digital.nhs.uk/catalogue/PUB23070/
ENDS