The Emergency Care Data Set (ECDS) is the national data set for urgent and emergency care.

ECDS allows NHS England to provide information to support the care provided in emergency departments by including the data items needed to understand capacity and demand and help improve patient care. The Emergency Care Data Set (ECDS) collects information about why people attend emergency departments and the treatment they receive to improve patient care through better and more consistent information, allow better planning of healthcare services and improve communication between health professionals.

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Key definitions

• Admissions – number of A&E attendances where the discharge destination has been recorded as an admission. 

• % admissions – the percentage of total A&E attendances where the discharge destination has been recorded as an admission. 

• Attendances – number of A&E attendances. 

• Attendances > 4 hours – number of A&E attendances where the reported departure time since arrival was more than 4 hours. 

• % attendances > 4 hours – the percentage of A&E attendances over 4 hours of all A&E attendances. 

• Attendances per patient – calculated by dividing the number of A&E attendances by the number of distinct patients. 

• % total attendances – percentage of A&E attendances (for selected respiratory condition) of all A&E attendances. 

• Patients – number of unique patients. A patient may attend A&E multiple times due to the same diagnosis/comorbidity. 

• Cost – cost of attendance, as recorded in the Emergency Care Data Set. 

About the data source

The Emergency Care Data Set (ECDS) is the national data set for urgent and emergency care. ECDS allows NHS England to provide information to support the care provided in emergency departments by including the data items needed to understand capacity and demand and help improve patient care. The Emergency Care Data Set (ECDS) collects information about why people attend emergency departments and the treatment they receive to improve patient care through better and more consistent information, allow better planning of healthcare services and improve communication between health professionals.

Read the data disclaimer.