More than half of A&E attendances involve patients staying more than two hours in the department – a higher percentage than the previous year.

The figures come from Accident & Emergency attendances in England (experimental statistics) 2010/11 which also shows there were 15.8 million unplanned attendances recorded by the NHS IC's Hospital Episodes Statistics (HES) in the year, up more than 700,000 on 2009/10 when there were 15.1 million.

The Department of Health's Quarterly Monitoring of Accident and Emergency (QMAE) is the official source for number of attendances at A&E and records more such attendances than are captured in HES. However, HES is able to offer more detailed analyses of A&E attendances, including hour by hour and even minute by minute profiles of how long patients stay in the A & E department.

The figures released today show:

• The percentage of unplanned attendances where a patient spent longer than two hours rose from 50.6 per cent (7.6 million) in 2009/10 to 53.7 per cent (8.5 million) in 2010/11.
• The percentage of unplanned attendances where a patient spent longer than four hours rose from 4.0 per cent (600,000) in 2009/10 to 5.6 per cent (900,000) in 2010/11. Note that the rise in the number of attendances where the patient spent more than four hours came ahead of the introduction of A&E Clinical Quality Indicators in April 2011. Following this, the four hour target has been replaced by eight indicators - one of which reflects the total time spent within A&E. The report also shows that in 2010/11:
• There were a total of 16.2 million attendances at A&E departments in England (including planned attendances) recorded in HES compared with 15.6 million in 2009/10.
• The busiest time for A & E arrivals is 10am on Monday mornings.
• 25.8 per cent (4.2 million) of arrivals at A & E were by ambulance or helicopter, similar to 25.2 per cent (3.9 million) in 2009/10.
• 27.1 per cent (4.4 million) of all A & E attendances had a recorded treatment of ‘Guidance/advice only'.
• 57.4 per cent (9.3 million) of all attendances were discharged (GP follow-up required or no follow-up required) following their attendance and 21.9 per cent (3.6 million) of all attendances were admitted into hospital.

See the full report and accompanying data tables

ENDS

Notes to editors

1. The NHS Information Centre for health and social care (The NHS IC) is England's authoritative, central, independent source of health and social care information. It works with a wide range of health and social care providers nationwide to provide the facts and figures that help the NHS and social services run effectively. Its role is to collect data, analyse it and convert it into useful information which helps providers improve their services and supports academics, researcher, regulators and policymakers in their work. The NHS IC also produces a wide range of statistical publications each year across a number of areas including: primary care, health and lifestyles, screening, hospital care, population and geography, social care and workforce and pay statistics.
2. The Department of Health's QMAE data return remains the official source of A&E attendance numbers. For the QMAE data, there were 21.4 million unplanned attendances at A&E, in comparison to the 15.8 recorded in the Hospital Episodes Statistics published today by the NHS Information Centre. The A&E Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) data, on which this report is based, is able to offer more detailed analysis. A&E HES coverage in this report represents 74 per cent of the QMAE attendances and has improved since the first publication of these experimental statistics in 2007-08 (62 per cent), aligning more closely to QMAE data. There are a total of 187 providers with attendances in A&E HES compared to 327 providers that have submitted A&E attendances via QMAE. Of the 140 providers which did not report to HES, 55 were minor injury clinics and walk-in centres and 77 were primary care trusts. With this in mind, this report focuses on the information available and submitted by providers to A&E HES as a rich data source, providing lower level trends and valuable analytical information which can be used to direct and inform decision making
3. A&E HES data is based on the number of attendances at A&E departments. It does not represent the number of patients treated, as a person may attend on several different occasions or at several different locations within the reporting period.
4. “Experimental statistics” are new official statistics that are under going evaluation. A key part of the “Experimental statistics” label is user engagement in the evaluation of those statistics. The NHS IC invites readers to comment on this publication, which will help inform the next report. Comments may be sent to enquires@ic.nhs.uk.
5. Figures for attendances have been rounded to the nearest 100,000. Percentages have been rounded to one decimal place.
6. Please note, references to A&E visits refer to attendances at A&E departments, minor injury clinics and walk-in centres.
7. Stays broken down by total length of stay in A&E is detailed in the table below: 2010-11 Number of attendance % of attendances Cumulative % 0-60 min 3,200,000 20.5% 20.5% 61-120 min 4,000,000 25.8% 46.3% 121-180 min 3,500,000 22.2% 68.5% 181-240 min 4,100,000 25.8% 94.4% 241+ min 900,000 5.6% 100.0% 2009-10 Number of attendance % of attendances Cumulative % 0-60 min 3,300,000 22.1% 22.1% 61-120 min 4,100,000 27.3% 49.4% 121-180 min 3,300,000 22.3% 71.7% 181-240 min 3,700,000 24.3% 96.0% 241+ min 600,000 4.0% 100.0% Please Note: Attendance figures are rounded to the nearest 100,000 and include only those attendances where the duration is recorded.
8. For media enquires please call 0845 257 6990 or contact mediaenquiries@ic.nhs.uk