This field tells you whether the episode had finished before the end of the HES data-year (ie whether the episode was still 'live' at midnight on 31 March). For example, if a patient was admitted on 25 March 2025 and was not discharged (or transferred to the care of another consultant) until 4 April 2005, there will be a record describing the unfinished episode (episode status = 1) in the 2004-05 data, and a separate record describing the finished episode (episode status = 3) in the 2005-06 data.

Because hospital providers are advised not to include clinical data (diagnosis and operation codes) in unfinished records, these are normally excluded from analyses. Also, if unfinished episodes are included in time series analyses - where data for more than one year is involved - there is a danger of counting the same episode twice.

1 = Unfinished

3 = Finished

9 = Derived unfinished (not present on processed data)