Emergency Care Data Set (ECDS)

The Emergency Care Data Set (ECDS) is the national data set for urgent and emergency care. It replaced Accident and Emergency Commissioning Data Set (CDS type 010) and was implemented through: ECDS (CDS 6.2.2 Type 011 and subsequent releases). The latest version of the data set is ECDS v4.0.

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
improve communication between health professionals

Watch the ECDS film

Read the video transcript

Did you know that the way we collect patient data in emergency departments has stayed the same since the 1970s so unsurprisingly it's time for a change.

Currently at a national level the data tells us only 5% of patients have a meaningful reason recorded for being in our departments and it's difficult to believe some of the diagnoses submitted in the past (including) boxing ring, dog breed, mushroom and condom.

The new emergency care data set has been created to solve these problems.

It's been jointly developed based on international best practice and will provide a rich soil from which insights pattens and innovations will grow. For the first time we'll be able to collect more accurate and detailed data about injuries.

Injuries are still the biggest cause of preventable years of life lost. Bigger than diabetes bigger than heart disease.

We all benefited from the research that showed that seatbelts save lives. We expect the data you'll be collecting will lead to similar breakthroughs and the good news is you're already collecting most of it.

While there will be some changes in the way you record this information. Testing in two of the largest emergency departments in the country saw no change in their performance against the four hour standard.

improved data collection will enable us to see and understand the big patterns in the urgent care system. It will lead to better communication with our patients and a GP colleagues better workforce planning and training as well as better research audit and health care analysis and that will benefit patients, emergency department staff and the NHS as a whole. So when you use the new data system in your department remember what you record will make a huge difference.

Extension of the ECDS v4.0 full conformance date

The conformance date deadline for the latest ECDS v4.0 XML schema has been extended by 12 months, to 1 July 2025. This is due to several ongoing challenges that have delayed full adherence to the submission and to maintain the current data flow of ECDS and other data sources to NHS England.

The retirement date for the separate ISB1594: Information Sharing to Tackle Violence Minimum Dataset was also extended to match.

During this extended period, you will continue to be able to submit data using the ECDS v3 XML schema.

Read the Secondary Uses Service (SUS) ECDSv3 scheme extension for more information.

ECDS v4.0

The SUS+ release on 29 June 2023 enabled the submission of data under ECDS v4.0 from 1 July 2023.

Further details are on the SUS what's new page.

The Information Standards Notice (ISN) for ECDS v4.0 was published in January 2023.

The key documents for the ISN are now available.

They are the:

Information Standards Notice
Requirements Specification
Change Specification
Implementation Guidance
Technical Output Specification (TOS)

The key changes made in ECDS version 4.0 include:

recording of Virtual Care (including virtual consultations)
recording Same Day Emergency Care (SDEC) activity
recording of Hot Clinics (Pilot)
deprecation of EC Service Type 04 – ‘NHS walk in centres’
recording activity relating to prevention of violence and injury / Injury Sharing to Tackle Violence (ISTV)
introduction of new Assessment Scales
expansion of clinical data terms (ECDS Max)
other minor changes (see TOS Change Control for more details)

Providers and system suppliers should familiarise themselves with the published documents to support the implementation date of 1 July 2023 and full conformance date of 1 July 2024.

ECDS Max was not implemented from 1 July 2023 and is being implemented from 29 November 2023.

The supporting documents for ECDS v4.0 including user guidance, XML Schema, Enhanced Technical Output Specification and ECDS Refset MAX Specification are published.

The ECDS v4.0 XML Schema is published on TRUD (account required).

For reference you can find the list of requirements in our guidance library and further information on the FutureNHS ECDS Forum.

ECDS v3.0

The Emergency Care Data Set (ECDS) v3.0 ECDS Information Standard, including the approved version of the Technical Output Specification V3.0 and a BETA version of the updated ECDS User Guide are still available.

ECDS v3.0 Enhanced Technical Output Specification

The ECDS Enhanced Technical Output Specification (ETOS) v3.1.1 is still available to download.

You will find the full emergency care approved codes list on the SUS+ what's new page. Please continue to check this page for updates.

There have been a number of changes to enhance the available ECDS codes, particularly diagnosis codes, and correct a number of issues with the previous version (v3.1.0) of the Enhanced Technical Output Specification (ETOS).

Updates to reference sets

The ECDS Technical Committee approved change release schedule differs from the SNOMED release schedule (TRUD).

Providers and suppliers should use the published ECDS Enhanced Technical Output Specification (and ECDS Refset MAX Specification if implementing ECDS Diagnosis Max), aligned with the emergency care approved codes list on the SUS+ what's new page for implementing all changes, rather than TRUD to avoid submission and data quality issues seen previously.

Addition of UK preferred term column

A new column was previously introduced in all SNOMED code tabs of the ETOS, to display the UK preferred term for each of the concepts in the RefSet.

Within the UK, systems must use the UK Edition of SNOMED CT. The UK Edition contains UK English descriptions in addition to the US descriptions provided in the International Release; it also provides relationships to UK concepts. This relates to the SCCI0034 standard.

SNOMED native systems must ensure that the UK preferred term is displayed. If this is not possible, suppliers should contact us by emailing [email protected] to discuss further.

Retirement of deprecated SNOMED CT Codes

End-dates are placed on any codes that are no longer used or are in the process of being retired (via the ‘Valid_To’ date) in the Enhanced Technical Output Specification (ETOS) and the ECDS Refset MAX Specification, to identify them as invalid for activity.

Please ensure you check your local setup to ensure it only contains valid SNOMED codes presented in the ETOS, or ECDS Refset MAX Specification (if implementing ECDS Diagnosis Max).

SNOMED codes that are marked as deprecated and do not appear as valid in the ETOS or ECDS Refset MAX Specification will not be accepted as valid codes for submission to SUS+ for activity.

ECDS conformance criteria

The conformance criteria document referred to in section 3.3 of the requirement specification has now been released.

ARTICLE

Emergency Care Data Set Conformance Indicators

In readiness for the aggregate emergency department data to cease and ECDS to be the single source of data, all acute providers need to be flowing data on a daily basis and complete all data fields in ECDS that are currently reported in the daily SitRep.

Previous ECDS version alignment (pre ECDS v4.0)

Technical Output Spec version	Aligns with schema version	Aligns with SNOMED content version	Notes
3.1.1	CDS v6.2.3	February 2022	Content updated with new codes and descriptions
3.1.0	CDS v6.2.3	October 2021	Now available fixes previous errors, introduces the SNOMED UK preferred term columns in chief complaint and diagnosis tabs
3.0.0	CDS v6.2.3	August 2020	Now available
2.1.1.1 (Enhanced)	CDS v6.2.2	April 2020	Addition of SNOMED term for COVID-19 Coronavirus, due to the infectious notifiable disease outbreak
2.1.1 (Enhanced)	CDS v6.2.2	October 2018	Lists all deprecated SNOMED codes due for retirement on 31/3/2019. This has been replaced with v2.1.1.1 which was published April 2020
2.1	CDS v6.2.2	Structure only No SNOMED content	Contains fix to postcode of usual address minimum field length and some minor typos.
2.0.0 (Enhanced)	CDS v6.2.2	October 2018	Replaced with v2.1.0, see above
2.0	CDS v6.2.2	Structure only NO SNOMED content	Replaced with v2.1.0, see above
1.5.2 (Enhanced)	CDS v6.2.1	October 2018
1.01	CDS v6.2.1	October 2017
1.0	CDS v6.2.1	April 2017

Guidance library

We have provided a library of our implementation, tools and guidance documents about the Emergency Care Data Set (ECDS).

Read the guidance

Feedback

You can use this form if you want to specifically request new ECDS SNOMED codes or request an amend to existing ECDS SNOMED codes.

If you have a general enquiry about ECDS please email us [email protected].

Join our mailing list

Join our mailing list to receive important ECDS updates, news and alerts.

Further information

The Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM)

Technology Reference data Update Distribution (TRUD)

The reference sets can be downloaded from TRUD, which requires a TRUD login. Not all ED systems use TRUD for updates so this may not be applicable to you.

Emergency Care Data Set (ECDS): GDPR information

Why and how we process your data in the Emergency Care Data Set (ECDS) and your rights.

Provisional Monthly Hospital Episode Statistics for Admitted Patient Care, Outpatient and Accident and Emergency data

ECDS Forum FutureNHS Collaboration Platform

This is a collaborative network for anyone with an interest in the ECDS and it's future. You can discuss, share learning, find information and support, and see what the future holds for ECDS. Scroll down for a snapshot of some of our upcoming events and milestones, and all the latest forum highlights. You can register an account via the page or alternatively email [email protected] to request an invitation link.

ECDS Provider User Group Registration

Data Liaison Service also host a monthly user group every third Thursday of the month, 3pm – 4pm, to enable discussion on all aspects of the ECDS The agenda typically includes a mix of national updates, sharing of best practice, demos of new resources and plenty of questions and answers. All materials and recordings are available via the ECDS Forum at communications and engagement - ECDS Forum - FutureNHS Collaboration Platform. Alternatively, please contact [email protected] with any queries.

Emergency Care Data Set (ECDS) data product

The ECDS data product is created from data submitted to NHS England as part of the Commissioning Data Set (CDS) (CDS type 011) which is managed by the Secondary Uses Service (SUS). Detail on the data submitted and how it is processed by SUS may be found within the Enhanced TOS (ETOS).

Last edited: 26 March 2025 10:41 am