Types of output

The HES Data Warehouse contains detailed records relating to individual patient treatments. Because these contain patient and clinician identifiers, the records themselves cannot normally be released, even in abbreviated form. However, there are exceptions to this rule - for example, medical research being undertaken following clearance from the appropriate ethics committee. In these cases, applications to receive copies of the relevant HES records will be referred to the Security and Confidentiality Advisory Group, an independent adjudicating body. Output consisting of individual records is referred to as an extract.

In most cases, HES is provided in the form of an aggregate summary, or tabulation. The tables available from this website are examples of tabulations, but in many cases the information required for detailed work is not available from them. For example, the primary diagnosis tables give mean lengths of stay for specific diagnoses nationally, but do not give the information for individual hospitals.

If you need more specific data than that available from this website you should complete the appropriate application form. These are contained in the Extract and Tabulation Packs in the Request a tailor-made report area.