These indicators are designed to accompany the SHMI publication.
As well as information on the main condition the patient is in hospital for (the primary diagnosis), the SHMI data contain up to 19 secondary diagnosis codes for other conditions the patient is suffering from. This information is used to calculate the expected number of deaths.
'Depth of coding' is defined as the number of secondary diagnosis codes for each record in the data. A higher mean depth of coding may indicate a higher proportion of patients with multiple conditions and/or comorbidities, but may also be due to differences in coding practices between trusts.
Contextual indicators on the mean depth of coding for elective and non-elective admissions are produced to support the interpretation of the SHMI.
Notes:
1. There is a shortfall in the number of records for East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust (trust code RXR), Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust (trust code RJ1), and King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust (trust code RJZ). Values for these trusts are based on incomplete data and should therefore be interpreted with caution.
2. Frimley Health NHS Foundation Trust (trust code RDU) stopped submitting data to the Secondary Uses Service (SUS) during June 2022 and did not start submitting data again until April 2023 due to an issue with their patient records system. This is causing a large shortfall in records and values for this trust should be viewed in the context of this issue.
3. There is a high percentage of invalid diagnosis codes for Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals NHS Trust (trust code RF4), Chesterfield Royal Hospital NHS Foundation Trust (trust code RFS), Milton Keynes University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust (trust code RD8), Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust (trust code RHU), and University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust (trust code RK9). Values for these trusts should therefore be interpreted with caution.
4. A number of trusts are now submitting Same Day Emergency Care (SDEC) data to the Emergency Care Data Set (ECDS) rather than the Admitted Patient Care (APC) dataset. The SHMI is calculated using APC data. Removal of SDEC activity from the APC data may impact a trust’s SHMI value and may increase it. More information about this is available in the Background Quality Report.
5. Further information on data quality can be found in the SHMI background quality report, which can be downloaded from the 'Resources' section of this page.