Publication, Part of Hospital Admitted Patient Care Activity
Hospital Admitted Patient Care Activity 2018-19
National statistics, Accredited official statistics
Summary
This is a report on admitted patient care activity in English NHS hospitals and English NHS-commissioned activity in the independent sector. This annual publication covers the financial year ending March 2019. It contains final data and replaces the provisional data that are released each month.
The data are taken from the Hospital Episodes Statistics (HES) data warehouse. HES contains records of all admissions, appointments and attendances for patients at NHS hospitals in England. The HES data used in this publication are called 'Finished Consultant Episodes', and each episode relates to a period of care for a patient under a single consultant at a single hospital. Therefore this report counts the number of episodes of care for admitted patients rather than the number of patients. This publication shows the number of episodes during the period, with a number of breakdowns including by patient's age, gender, diagnosis, procedure involved and by provider.
Hospital Adult Critical Care (ACC) data are now included within this report, following the discontinuation of the 'Hospital Adult Critical Care Activity publication. The ACC data tables are not a designated National Statistic and they remain separate from the APC data tables. The ACC data used in this publication draws on records submitted by providers as an attachment to the admitted patient care record. These data show the number of adult critical care records during the period, with a number of breakdowns including admission details, discharge details, patient demographics and clinical information.
The purpose of this publication is to inform and support strategic and policy-led processes for the benefit of patient care. This document will also be of interest to researchers, journalists and members of the public interested in NHS hospital activity in England.
Supplementary analysis has been produced, by NHS Digital, containing experimental statistics using the Paediatric Critical Care Minimum Data Set (PCCMDS) data, collected by NHS Digital, against activity published in NHS Reference Costs. This analysis seeks to assist users of the data in understanding the data quality of reported paediatric critical care data.
Also included within this release, is supplementary analysis that has been produced in addition to the Retrospective Review of Surgery for Urogynaecological Prolapse and Stress Urinary Incontinence using Tape or Mesh: Hospital Episode Statistics (HES), Experimental Statistics, April 2008 - March 2017. It contains a count of Finished Consultant Episodes (FCEs) where a procedure for urogynaecological prolapse or stress urinary incontinence using tape or mesh has been recorded during the April 2018 to March 2019 period.
Highlights
Please note that East Sussex (RXC) removed all their diagnosis codes between April and November 2018. Approximately 88,000 records were affected. NHS England did not become aware of this until after the 2018-19 annual publications had already been run.
The data was re-submitted and corrected in HES but it was not possible to re-run and amend the annual publication. This means that some data presented here in the annual publication for 2018-19 will not match what is now held on the HES database. This mainly affects the diagnosis tables but will also impact tables E and F of the Provider Level Analysis and the External Causes table.
If you have any queries about this please contact us using the details at the bottom of this page.
Number of Finished Consultant Episodes (FCEs)
In 2018-19 there were 20.8 million FCEs recorded
Number of Finished Admission Episodes (FAEs)
17.1 million Finished Admission Episodes (FAEs) were recorded in 2018-19
Adult Critical Care
There were 291,679 useable critical care records recorded in 2018-19
Resources
Last edited: 18 June 2025 11:28 am