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Publication, Part of Provisional Accident and Emergency Quality Indicators for England
Provisional Accident and Emergency Quality Indicators for England, Experimental statistics by provider for April 2011
Official statistics, Experimental statistics- Publication Date:
- 26 Aug 2011
- Geographic Coverage:
- England
- Geographical Granularity:
- Hospital Trusts, NHS Trusts, Independent Sector Health Care Providers
- Date Range:
- 01 Apr 2011 to 30 Apr 2011
Summary
In April 2011 a new set of clinical quality indicators was introduced to replace the previous four hour waiting time standard, and measure the quality of care delivered in A&E departments in England. Further details on the background and management of the quality indicators are available from the Department of Health (DH) website.
This is the first publication of data on the Accident and Emergency (A&E) clinical quality indicators, drawn from A&E data within provisional Hospital Episode Statistics (HES). These data relate to A&E attendances in April 2011 and draw on just under 1.4 million detailed records of attendances at major A&E departments, single speciality A&E departments (e.g. dental A&Es), minor injury units and walk-in centres in England.
This report sets out data coverage, data quality and performance information for the following 5 A&E indicators:
- Left department before being seen for treatment rate
- Re-attendance rate
- Time to initial assessment
- Time to treatment
- Total time in A&E
Publishing these data will help share information on the quality of care of A&E services to stimulate the discussion and debate between patients, clinicians, providers and commissioners, which is needed in a culture of continuous improvement.
These A&E HES data are published as experimental statistics to note the shortfalls in the quality and coverage of records submitted via the A&E commissioning data set. The data used in these reports are sourced from Provisional A&E HES data, and as such these data may differ to information extracted directly from Secondary Uses Service (SUS) data, or data extracted directly from local patient administration systems.
Provisional HES data may be revised throughout the year (for example, activity data for April 2011 may differ depending on whether they are extracted in August 2011, or later in the year). Indicator data published for earlier months have not been revised using updated HES data extracted in subsequent months.
The data presented here represent the output of the existing A&E Commissioning Dataset (CDS V6 Type 010). It must be recognised that these data will not exactly match the data definitions for the A&E clinical quality indicators set out in the guidance document A&E clinical quality indicators: Implementation guidance and data definitions.
The DH is currently working with Information Standards Board to amend the existing CDS Type 10 Accident and Emergency to collect the data required to monitor the A&E indicators.
A&E HES data are collected and published by the NHS Information Centre for Health and Social Care. The data in this report are secondary analyses of HES data produced by the Urgent & Emergency Care team, Department of Health.
Highlights
- A&E HES data contain almost 1.4 million A&E attendances for April 2011 at all types of A&E. However, A&E HES data are incomplete; over 1.7 million A&E attendances were reported in the Department of Health Situation Report data collection for April, and 116 organizations that report data to Situation Reports did not report data to A&E HES; these organizations are mostly lower acuity services such as minor injury units and walk-in centres.
- Several organizations reported data that did not meet the data quality checks required by the 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, 3.4 per cent of attendances at A&E departments were recorded as having left A&E before being seen for treatment, and 7.5 per cent of attendances at A&E in April 2011 were 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 6 minutes, with 95 per cent of patients being assessed within 1 hour 56 minutes. For all patients receiving treatment, the median average time to treatment was 57 minutes, with 95 per cent of patients receiving treatment within 3 hours 18 minutes.
- The median average total time in A&E for all patients was 2 hours 11 minutes, with 95 per cent of patients departing A&E within 4 hours 18 minutes of arrival.
Resources
Last edited: 14 February 2022 8:56 am