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What can routine health data tell us about the need for unplanned emergency department and hospital care over winter?

Safe People

Organisation name

University of Edinburgh

Applicant name(s)

Dr Atul Anand

Funders/ Sponsors

HDR UK Scotland

Safe Projects

Project ID

DL_2022_065

Lay summary

There are high pressures on NHS hospitals over winter periods particularly with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. In this project we will report how recent winter hospital admissions have varied across a whole population in Lothian by the patterns of peoples’ health conditions, frailty, socioeconomic deprivation and previous NHS contacts. We will see if simple tools already available to clinicians could predict which people are more likely to need hospital care over winter, including for COVID and other winter viruses like influenza. This could help to better target preventive care. The NHS is increasingly treating people at home using ‘virtual wards’, managed remotely by hospital teams. We will use Emergency Department data to identify how many recent winter attendances may have been suitable for care at home. Through this project, we aim to show how routinely collected health data could coordinate smarter responses to winter hospital pressures in the future.

Public benefit statement

The NHS is under unprecedented pressure, which worsens over winter periods. Hospital Emergency Departments are persistently running over planned capacity. This represents a crisis in healthcare delivery that risks patient safety. We know that some people are at higher risk of needing hospital care, such as older people with frailty or multiple long-term health conditions, and those from more socioeconomically deprived backgrounds. However, it is unclear how well routine health data reflects these risks in a post-COVID era and with increased use of ‘hospital at home’ virtual ward services. We will assess which measures of health status, frailty and deprivation best predict the need for hospital care over winter for Lothian residents. We will look back at the last 4 years, from winter 2019/20 just prior to the pandemic up to and including the current 2022/23 period. The analysis will include all types of hospital attendance, but we will specifically report winter 8 virus admissions such as COVID and ‘Flu. This work could provide better data-driven strategies in the preparation for future winter periods, such as the targeting of vaccine drives, or use of virtual wards. Ultimately, it is critical that data informs efforts to reduce pressures on NHS services.

Request category type

Public Health Research

Latest approval date

13/06/2023

Safe Data

Dataset(s) name

Researcher-sourced data

Data sensitivity level

De-Personalised

Safe Setting

Access type

TRE