SEPHO HES Services
Online HES request form
What is HES?
Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) provides information on all admitted patient care delivered by NHS hospitals in England from 1989 onwards. About 14 million records for inpatients and day cases. HES is a subset of these data and contains data such as age, sex, dates of admission and discharge, diagnoses, operations and procedures, place of residence and ethnicity. HES covers all medical specialties and includes private patients treated within NHS hospitals. It does not, however, include private patients treated in private hospitals.
A full list of the variables collected, and their definitions, can be found within the Episodes Statistics Data Dictionary (Department of Health).
HES Safe Haven
Public Health Observatories (PHO) were established as regional “safe havens” for HES following Shifting the Balance of Power and a widening of access to HES. SEPHO has access to an extract of HES data for the South East Region going back 10 years which as well as access to an on-line system (HES2) for the whole of England (although this does not contain sensitive data items e.g. postcode, date of birth and other potential patient identifiers).
[Return to top]
How can HES be used?
The Department of Health lists the main current uses of HES as:
- to develop, monitor and evaluate departmental policies
- to assess the effective delivery of care
- to identify public health issues
- to monitor improvements in public health
- to determine fair access to health care
- to improve the patient/carer experience
- to examine health outcomes
- for public & parliamentary accountability
- for central & local NHS management
- in resource acquisition and distribution
- for general medical research & statistical functions
HES cannot be used to identify individuals admitted to hospital and all HES outputs are strictly controlled to protect the confidentiality of individuals. For further information see the Department of Health HES web pages.
[Return to top]
PHO Regional HES Service - what can SEPHO offer?
National work
SEPHO works with other members of the Association of Public Health Observatories through a HES management group and a HES technical group. The technical group has developed password protected web sites for sharing data quality issues discovered and common data queries and recording requests and projects.
Standard outputs
SEPHO is developing a set of standard outputs (tables & graphics) specifically for the South East Region. These are intended to cover key disease and policy areas. Atlases of Hospital Admissions - UHCE/SEPHO Epidemiological Database and Case-Mix
a) General analyses
Basic benchmarking types of analyses showing variations in admission rates for hospital Trusts and geographical area of residence in the South East for example by:
- type of admission (elective / non-elective / day case) & trends
- top causes of admission
- ICD 10 sub-groupings
- length of stay
- age band
b) Specific analyses
More complex analyses to reflect public health priorities in the South East and support other strategic planning work for example:
- CHD/acute MI admission rates
- revascularisation rates (CABG/PTCA, angiography)
- stroke
- risk factors e.g. tobacco related/drugs related hospital admissions
- respiratory disease, COPD/asthma
- diabetes
- renal disease
- cancer
- mental health
- older people
- children
- accidents & by type of accident
- Hip/knee replacements
[Return to top]
Responsive Ad-hoc service
SEPHO has been dealing with requests for HES data since early 2004. If the HES data you are looking for is not included within the Department of Health’s free data tables and you would like to request HES data or analyses, please use the online HES request form in the first instance. Alternatively, you can e-mail or telephone us.
We will need to know:
- Details of your organisation including contact details
- Details of the data you require e.g. time period, diagnoses & procedure codes, by LA/PCT/Trust
- Business purpose - why you need the data/what the data will be used for
- When you need the data by
A member of the SEPHO HES analysis team will then contact you to refine and confirm the request. Please give as much notice as possible and be aware that:
- In general we provide data to allow you to perform further analysis rather than finished products.
- Information about individuals is highly sensitive. Therefore, in general, we only provide aggregate data – we cannot provide individual record data except under special circumstances and by agreement from the Department of Health. It is recognised that certain data items including postcode, gender and date of birth can in combination be used to identify individuals. SEPHO cannot, therefore, release these identifiers to a third party.
- The National Information Centre guidelines require the suppression of any aggregated data containing values between 1 and 5 at a local level as these are considered potentially disclosive. Alternatives to suppressing low numbers include considering a higher level of aggregation. However, if compromises are not suitable, customers can make a business case to SEPHO for access to low numbers which will be considered by SEPHO with advice from Department of Health.
- Outpatient data is not presently available - although an experimental dataset is currently being reviewed.
- The most recent data is for 2008/09.
Currently this service is free at the point of enquiry although this may be reviewed depending on demand.
South East of England HES Network
We are establishing an e-mail group for anyone in the South East Region with an interest in HES. You can use this group to discuss any issue relating to the HES data and how to use it. We will consult the group on any new developments to our Regional HES Service and send out updates when new outputs become available. To join, please contact Steve Morgan .
More About HES
A collection of HES related resources, including SEPHO HES strategy, presentations and feedback from HES related regional meetings, and links to HES outputs can be found on the SEPHO web site under A Collection of HES resources.
Please note that SEPHO are unable to provide data extracts or disclose identifiable data items. We are only able to supply aggregated tabular analyses. The use of identifiable data or data extracts requires full Security and Confidentiality approval (National governance Board). Therefore, queries of this nature should be sent to information.governance@ic.nhs.uk or telephone 0113 254 7054.
[Return to top]
Jo Watson
jo.watson@sepho.nhs.uk
Head of Information
South East Public Health Observatory
4150 Chancellor Court
Oxford Business Park South
Oxford OX4 2GX
Tel: + 44 (0) 1865 334 711
Fax: + 44 (0) 1865 334 715
Last review Jul 2009