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EMPHO Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) Service

What is HES?

Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) provides information on admitted patient care delivered by NHS hospitals in England from 1989 onwards. Each financial year around 12 million records for inpatients and day cases are generated containing data such as age, sex, dates of admission and discharge, diagnoses and operations and procedures.

A full list of variables collected, and their definitions, can be found within the Hospital Episodes Statistics Data Dictionary.

HES provide a comprehensive picture of hospital care that can support public health analysis, planning and resource allocation, benchmarking, clinical audit, monitoring and performance management and research. It can offer a longitudinal picture of particular conditions or procedures. It can support local NHS analysis of activity and allows comparisons between Trusts, PCTs, SHAs, LAs, etc. In addition it also provides data for the construction of a large percentage of the NHS Performance Indicators which summarise quality and performance in the NHS.

To find out more about how Public Health Observatories use HES data, click here.

What can EMPHO provide?

Responsive ad-hoc service

EMPHO has access to a national HES data relating to inpatient admissions, outpatient appointments, accident and emergency attendances (A&E) and patient reported outcome measures (PROMs).

We provide expert advice on the use of this dataset and can produce tailor made analyses of hospital care at local, regional and national levels. This service allows organisations to place themselves within the national (or sub-national) context.

  • We generally provide data to allow you to perform further analysis rather than finished products.
  • We provide aggregate data - we cannot provide individual record data, except in exceptional cases and with agreement from the Department of Health.
  • We are keen that, wherever possible, information requested should inform regional knowledge and not just be for a local enquiry, and may prioritise work on the basis of this.
  • We may also advise you when information requested could be more reasonably obtained from another source.

The HES service will be provided free at the point of enquiry, although this may need to be reviewed in the future.

Requests for the service come primarily from the NHS, particularly PCTs, although, data may be of use to academics and the research community. Those involved in partnerships with health, e.g. local authorities are also able to use the service.

Ad-hoc work already undertaken by EMPHO includes:

  • Admission rates for accidental injury by PCT of residence and local authority
  • Revascularisation rates by PCT of residence
  • Admission rates for children by PCT of residence
  • Admission rates for childhood asthma by PCT of residence
  • 28 day in-hospital mortality rates for Heart Failure and COPD
  • Numbers of admission by ethnic group for various diagnoses
  • Health equity audit.

To request HES data, see the 'Requesting HES data' page.

Regional Standard outputs

Using inpatient HES data EMPHO has produced a range of indicators to support local public health colleagues. Key Health Indicators have been produced at Local Authority and PCT level and bring together information on health (and the factors affecting health) in the East Midlands.

Indicators have also been calculated at lower super output area (LSOA) level where appropriate. These ‘small area’ datasets are provided to inform local inequalities work and are available for those working within the NHS. The small numbers involved require this data to be restricted to registered users of the website only.

Both Key Health Indicators and Small Area Health Data can be access via the ‘EMPHO Data Store’.

National Standard outputs

EMPHO works closely with the other English Public Health Observatories to produce a National Atlas of health indicators based on HES data at both PCT and Local Authority geographies.

The HES E-Atlas includes indicators relating to admissions for specific diagnoses (e.g. asthma, epilepsy, pneumonia) and procedures (e.g. appendectomy, hernia, knee replacement) and can be accessed via the Public Health Observatories website.

 

PAGE CREATED: 13 April 2008 | PAGE REVISED: 10 May 2011