Emergency Care Data Set (ECDS) data product

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

• the capture of information about the complexity and acuity of attending patients.
• granular diagnostic data to ensure an enhanced understanding of need, activity and outcomes.
• consistent monitoring of data across local and national initiatives.
• support for injury surveillance, such that it will be possible to identify patterns that may be amenable to targeted interventions and improved public health.

• understanding causes of rising demand and the value added by emergency departments

ECDS data is used for non-clinical purposes, such as research and planning health services and is also used for purposes relating to the direct care of individuals like the NHS England Cohorting as a Service.

ECDS can be used to:

• monitor trends and patterns in A&E activity
• improve patient care through better and more consistent information
• assess effective delivery of care
• allow better planning of healthcare services
• provide the basis for national indicators of clinical quality
• reveal health trends over time
• inform patient choice
• determine fair access to health care
• develop, monitor and evaluate government policy
• support NHS and parliamentary accountability
• improve communication between health professionals

The Emergency Care Data Set (ECDS) is the national data set for urgent and emergency care. Reporting of ECDS data commenced in October 2017 through a phased implementation by reporting organisations. It replaced Accident & Emergency Commissioning Data Set (CDS type 010) and was implemented through ECDS (CDS 6.2.2 Type 011)

This transition to reporting to ECDS was fully completed in 2020 to enable the commencement of reporting from the new source for the financial years commencing April 2020 onwards.    

ECDS data covers all Sub Integrated Care Boards (Sub ICB) and Integrated Care Boards (ICB) in England (previously Clinical Commissioning Group, CCG), including:

• private patients treated in NHS hospitals
• patients resident outside of England
• care delivered by treatment centres (including those in the independent sector) funded by the NHS

Each ECDS attendance record contains a wide range of information about an individual patient attending an Emergency Care setting including:

• clinical information about diagnoses and operations
• patient information, such as age group, gender and ethnicity
• administrative information, such as dates and methods of attendance
• geographical information such as where patients are treated and the area where they live

Details of all the data fields present within the analytical ECDS data product may be found in the ECDS Analytical TOS (ATOS) and a visual representation of the tables and fields, including identification of primary and secondary keys for linking between tables, can be found in the ECDS Data Model.

In providing a data product that supports the different requirements of its customers, ECDS also ensures that these requirements are met through pseudonymisation, data minimisations and also through adherence to disclosure control rules around the reporting of aggregate outputs produced using the data.

A driver behind the phased implementation of reporting of the ECDS was to enable insights to be realised as quickly as possible. As a multi-use data product, universal reporting coverage may not be required. Therefore, the ECDS data product is available prior to April 2020 for use, and has accompanying data quality information, on the Processing cycle and ECDS data quality, with which users are able to make their own assessment of the use of the data product for their own specific needs.

SUS takes a daily snapshot of the ECDS which is used to produce a daily ECDS data product view throughout the year. In addition to this, on a set number of pre-arranged dates during the financial year, SUS takes a fixed snapshot of the CDS for the production of monthly and an annual ECDS data product. These specific data product views have been designed to enable the multi-use of ECDS data to deliver on a range of customer user requirements. These help to accommodate trade-off between timeliness of data provided through the daily data asset, and additional curation, completeness and accuracy of the data for the monthly and annual data assets.

The monthly and annual data assets have been designed to align with and replace the historical HES Accident and Emergency data product produced from the submission of CDS type 010. Details of all the historical HES A&E data fields may be found in the Hospital Episode Statistics Data Dictionary. ECDS has been designed to help address an increasing number of analytical user needs than its predecessor. To enable historic analyses of A&E activity, HES A&E prior to April 2020 will continue to be available for use.

The Emergency Care Data Set (ECDS) Analytical Technical Output Specification (ATOS) is a data dictionary intended for use by all users of the ECDS Data Product. Data dictionaries work in the same way as normal dictionaries, but they contain information about data items.

The monthly and annual ECDS data product is used to create a range of analytical and statistical outputs across many different organisations and teams. To support this activity, NHS England produce the following monthly and annual official statistic reporting series:

Provisional Accident and Emergency Quality Indicators for England

Hospital Accident & Emergency Activity

Hospital Episode Statistics publications, and Accident and Emergency publications prior to 2020/21, are available from the Hospital Episode Statistics Data Product.  

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

Disclosure control methodology for Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) and Emergency Care Data Set (ECDS)

The methodology will be applied by the Secondary Care Analysis team in producing and disseminating outputs using Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) and Emergency Care Data Set (ECDS) data.

You can find further information about this data collection, including the relevant data provision notice, on the ECDS Data Provision Notice. 

Processing cycle and Emergency Care Data Set (ECDS) data quality

This data quality report provides monthly, interactive reports on coverage, data quality and the transition of moving to the new national Emergency Care Data Set (ECDS).

Emergency care concepts to support users of the Emergency Care Data Set (ECDS) data product

Concepts and principles to help users understand how to work with ECDS data most effectively.

Same Day Emergency Care (SDEC) data collected in ECDS Version 4 

Details about the migration of the collection of Same Day Emergency Care (SDEC) data to the Emergency Care Data Set (ECDS) V4 and the number of sites currently adopting the new process.

New curated ECDS data product

Details of the new Curated Emergency Care Data Product is now available within the Data Platform Service, specifying the differences between the legacy SQL ECDS asset and plans going forward.