These indicators are designed to accompany the SHMI publication.
As of the July 2020 publication, COVID-19 activity has been excluded from the SHMI. The SHMI is not designed for this type of pandemic activity and the statistical modelling used to calculate the SHMI may not be as robust if such activity were included.
There has been a fall in the number of spells for some trusts due to COVID-19 impacting on activity from March 2020 onwards and this appears to be an accurate reflection of hospital activity rather than a case of missing data.
Contextual indicators on the number of provider spells which are excluded from the SHMI due to them being related to COVID-19 and on the number of provider spells as a percentage of pre-pandemic activity (January 2019 – December 2019) are produced to support the interpretation of the SHMI.
These indicators are being published as experimental statistics. Experimental statistics are official statistics which are published in order to involve users and stakeholders in their development and as a means to build in quality at an early stage.
Notes:
1. There is a shortfall in the number of records for Ashford and St Peter's Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (trust code RTK) and Royal Surrey County Hospital NHS Foundation Trust (trust code RA2). Values for these trusts are based on incomplete data and should therefore be interpreted with caution.
2. Further information on data quality can be found in the SHMI background quality report, which can be downloaded from the 'Resources' section of the publication page.