Emergency Department Admissions: Analysis of CDS Dataset (part 4)

I analyse an anonymised data dump of 1.9 million admissions records to the emergency departments of an undisclosed NHS Trust for the period June 2017 – September 2021

I deliberately short-changed readers with part 3 of this series because I want to introduce folk to the basic demographics of busy A&E departments within a sizeable NHS Trust. Let’s start out with how folk get to A&E in the first instance…

Arrival Mode

‘Ambulance’ includes arrival by air ambulance but I’m guessing readers will be wondering what ‘other’ means. From experience (and my own surveys way back when) I can report that this mostly means private transport, though it will include public transport and police transport in the case of those held in custody.

Bizarre as it may seem, mature males insisting on driving themselves to hospital whilst having a classic heart attack (ST elevation myocardial infarction a.k.a. STEMI) was not that uncommon back when we took a close look at these things.

I think what is going to surprise readers is just how many A&E admissions (75.3% of known modes) start with somebody making their own way to the department, or by having somebody drive them. The e…