5. ACTIVITY AND PERFORMANCE
5.1.5 Could the Department provide a breakdown
of the main sources of outpatient referral in addition to referrals
from GPs for each year from 2000? (Q44)
Answer
1. The available information is given in
table 44.
2. Data are sourced from Hospital Episode
Statistics (HES).
3. Outpatient HES data were collected for
the first time in 2003-04, however data quality was very poor
in the first year of collection.
4. It is not mandatory to code procedures
on outpatient records and therefore only around 2% of records
have completed clinical codes. The NHS Information Centre has
no reliable existing data source to validate this data against,
as Department of Health aggregate returns data has never collected
clinical codes, and therefore it is not clear how representative
it is.
5. The data represents a sample of outpatient
attendances and statistics (such as median and 90th percentile
waiting times for main operations) are unreliable until it is
possible to assess the extent of dummy coding.
6. Outpatient HES data is collected via
the Patient Administration Systems in hospitals and therefore
may differ from the data collected by Department of Health via
QM08 aggregate returns. The figures in table 44 cannot therefore
be compared on a "like for like" basis to those in table
42.
Table 44
MAIN SOURCES OF OUTPATIENT REFERRALS
|
| Source | 2000-01
| 2001-02 | 2002-03
| 2003-04 | 2004-05
| 2005-06 | 2006-07
| 2007-08 |
|
| Following an emergency admission | -
| - | -
| - | 175,723
| 173,064 | 195,689
| 194,168 |
| Following a domiciliary visit | -
| - | -
| - | 20,919
| 22,690 | 19,640
| 22,166 |
| Referral from general medical practitioner |
- | -
| - | -
| 7,977,741 | 8,694,014
| 8,476,257 | 8,881,627
|
| Referral from an A&E department | -
| - | -
| - | 993,116
| 1,072,069 | 1,105,363
| 1,096,464 |
| Referral from a consultant, other than in an A&E department
| - | -
| - | -
| 2,074,401 | 2,482,698
| 2,724,902 | 3,012,066
|
| Self referral | -
| - | -
| - | 258,667
| 312,237 | 402,101
| 473,592 |
| Referral from prosthetist | -
| - | -
| - | 13,034
| 9,594 | 9,641
| 17,136 |
| Other source of referral | -
| - | -
| - | 681,703
| 1,008,472 | 1,238,263
| 1,178,149 |
| Following an A&E attendance | -
| - | -
| - | 57,157
| 75,515 | 96,969
| 136,270 |
| Other | - |
- | -
| - | 422,244
| 558,004 | 540,884
| 619,859 |
| General dental practitioner | -
| - | -
| - | 292,305
| 320,544 | 356,812
| 398,499 |
| Community dental service | -
| - | -
| - | 5,697
| 6,648 | 6,784
| 7,681 |
| Not known | -
| - | -
| - | 177,548
| 183,247 | 174,379
| 157,953 |
| Referral from general practitioner with special interest
| - | -
| - | -
| - | -
| - | 60,194
|
| Referral from a specialist nurse | -
| - | -
| - | -
| - | -
| 14,411 |
| Referral from an allied health professional |
- | -
| - | -
| - | -
| - | 5,904
|
| Referral from an optometrist | -
| - | -
| - | -
| - | -
| 12,053 |
| Referral from an orthoptist | -
| - | -
| - | -
| - | -
| 789 |
| Other, not initiated by consultant responsible for outpatient episode
| - | -
| - | -
| - | -
| - | 242,524
|
| Referral from a National Screening Programme
| - | -
| - | -
| - | -
| - | 3,996
|
|
| Source: |
The NHS Information Centre for Health and Social Care (Hospital Episode Statistics (HES))
|
| Footnotes: |
| 1. Source of referral—this identifies the source of referral for each outpatient consultant episode. The referral may or may not be initiated by the responsible consultant depending on the circumstances. There is a very high level of validity but there is evidence of variable provider practice in recording this for subsequent attendances. 36 of 162 organisations with in-patient dental specialties were not recording general dental practitioner (GDP) as a referral source. Analysis is restricted to first attendances, unless local provider practice for subsequent attendances is known. Analysis should also be restricted to GDP referrals for relevant organisations who record.
|
| 2. Appointment count—this provides a count of the number of planned/booked appointments for outpatients. The database is constructed of one row per appointment that was made, whether it was attended or not. This data shows first attendances only.
|
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