Title

Performance against waiting times targets by hospital

Last update

23 August 2018 23 August 2018

Next update

20 September 2018

Publishing organisation

Welsh Government

Source 1

Emergency department data set (EDDS), NHS Wales Informatics Services (NWIS)

Contact email

stats.healthinfo@gov.wales

Designation

National Statistics

Lowest level of geographical disaggregation

Local health boards

Geographical coverage

Wales

Languages covered

English and Welsh

Data licensing

You may use and re-use this data free of charge in any format or medium, under the terms of the Open Government License - see http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence

General description

Data Prior to January 2013 will not be directly comparable with data for January 2013 onwards due to a change in methodology. See notes in March 2013 release for more details (January 2013).
For the March 2017 data onwards, there will be a new approach to publishing the emergency departments waiting times data: Prior to August 2012 data, the monthly emergency departments waiting times data was published by Welsh Government as official statistics in a Statistical Release, with more detailed data on StatsWales.
For August 2012 to February 2017 data, the monthly data was published by NHS Wales Informatics Service (NWIS) on their website as management information.
For March 2017 data onwards the monthly data is published on StatsWales with the NWIS publication being discontinued.
There are some technical changes to A&E reporting, that have been implemented from December 2011 around clinical and operational exclusions. From December 2011, the guidance below now applies in Wales. So, the two situations below will no longer be counted as a breach of the targets: If a clinician decides that the safest place for a patient is the emergency department, the patient should remain there until it is safe to move them; and patients should not be admitted solely to avoid a breach of the targets. Clinicians should admit patients only to appropriate facilities and only when it is appropriate to do so.
For the December 2011 data, Cardiff and Vale University and Betsi Cadwaladr University LHBs were not able to implement the change to the guidance around clinical exclusions.
For the January to July 2012 data, Betsi Cadwaladr University LHB was not able to fully implement the change for all months and Cardiff and Vale University LHB was only able to implement it for 26 to 31 January, but have fully implemented it from the February 2012 data. (Cardiff and Vale University informed us that they had to develop and test its systems and train users to ensure a robust collection around clinical exclusions to comply with the new EU compliance guidance. This was completed late in January.) Therefore the Wales figures for December 2011 to July 2012 are likely to be lower than expected.
A target around the eradication of 12 hour or more waits in all emergency care facilities from April 2013 onwards was introduced in the NHS Wales Delivery Framework for 2013-14, therefore data on the 12 hour target is not available before this date.
Until April 2012, data was submitted via SITREPS on a daily and weekly basis. The quality of the daily reported data was not robust enough for publication, therefore data was taken from the validated weekly reports to ensure greater reliability. As a result, the information presented is based on a four/five weekly cycle rather than calendar months. The number of weeks in any given cycle is based on how many Mondays fall between the end of the previous cycle and the end of the month. It is the week end date, always a Monday, which is used to determine the 'month' a particular weekly report belongs to. Months consisting of a 5 week reporting period have a note next to them.
Data for other A&E/minor injury units is only shown from April 2012 onwards as this information was not collected through SITREPS.

Data collection and calculation

Please find this information in the related statistical release, as per the given weblink.

Frequency of publication

Monthly

Data reference periods

April 2008 onwards

Users, uses and context

Please find this information in the related statistical release, as per the given weblink.

Revisions information

On a monthly basis, LHBs can resubmit data to NWIS if they have carried further validation during the month and they need to revise their data. In 2013, we looked at the size and impact of the resubmissions for the data. The impact of the changes tended to be minimal accounting for less than one percentage point change against the 4 hour target for ‘A&E departments’.

Statistical quality

Please find this information in the related statistical release, as per the given weblink.

Keywords

Waiting times; A&E

Weblinks

The most recent statistical release on accident and emergency waiting times can be found on the following weblink:
http://gov.wales/statistics-and-research/time-spent-nhs-accident-emergency-departments/?lang=en

Name

HLTH0035