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Publication, Part of

Hospital Outpatient Activity 2023-24

National statistics, Accredited official statistics

Publication Date:
26 Sep 2024
Geographic Coverage:
England
Geographical Granularity:
Strategic Health Authorities, Hospital Trusts, Independent Sector Health Care Providers, Regions, NHS Trusts, Country
Date Range:
01 Apr 2023 to 31 Mar 2024
Accredited official statistics logo.

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Hospital Outpatient Activity 2023-24

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About this publication
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Summary

This publication reports on Outpatient activity in England for the financial year 2023-24.

This report includes but is not limited to analysis of hospital outpatient appointments by patient demographics, diagnoses, attendance type, operations, specialty and provider level analysis. It describes NHS outpatient appointments in England, rather than the number of patients. The purpose of this publication is to inform and support strategic and policy-led processes for the benefit of patient care and may also be of interest to researchers, journalists and members of the public interested in NHS hospital activity in England.

The data source for this publication is Hospital Episode Statistics (HES), which come from the HES data warehouse containing details of all admissions and outpatient appointments at National Health Service (NHS) hospitals in England. It includes private patients treated in NHS hospitals, patients who were resident outside of England and care delivered by treatment centres (including those in the independent sector) funded by the NHS.

Please send queries or feedback via email to [email protected]. Author: Secondary Care Open Data and Publications, NHS England. Lead Analyst: Karl Eichler.

Highlights

Number of Outpatient Appointments

In 2023-24, there were 135.4 million outpatient appointments.

This is an increase of 8.8% from the published figure for the previous year, and an 8.4% increase from the level seen before the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic (there were 124.9 million appointments in 2019-20).

Please note that the published number of appointments for 2022-23 are estimated to have been 1.3 million records less than the actual level of activity, as one provider was unable to submit data between June 2022 and March 2023.

Number of Outpatient Attendances

In 2023-24, there were 104.6 million outpatient attendances.

This is an increase of 9.1% from the published figure for the previous year, and an 8.5% increase from the level seen before the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic (there were 96.4 million attendances in 2019-20).

Please note that the published number of attendances for 2022-23 are estimated to have been 1.0 million records less than the actual level of activity, as one provider was unable to submit data between June 2022 and March 2023.

Number of 'Did Not Attends' for outpatient appointments

In 2023-24, 8.0 million outpatient appointments were DNAs.

This is an increase of 0.2% from the previous year. 

Key Facts

Last edited: 26 September 2024 9:30 am