ABSTRACT
Hospital episode statistics (HES) were introduced in April 1987 to replace the ‘ageing’ hospital activity analysis and hospital inpatient enquiry. It was recognized that if management systems were to function effectively in the NHS, there had to be consistent and high quality data upon which decisions could be soundly based. The lack of such data was recognized by the Department of Health and Social Security (DHSS) in 1978, remarking at the time that the current collection of activity and financial statistics were ‘unsatisfactory for planning work’ (Steering Group on Health Services Information, 1982, p. 7). The Resource Allocation Working Party (RAWP) had earlier stated, in 1976, that there was a ‘pressing need for improvement in the data routinely collected’. The major change was to move away from the recording of ‘deaths and discharges’ to the consultant episode, that is ‘the time a patient spends in the care of one consultant’ (ibid., p. 26). This measure was decided upon as it could be used to determine both the health care experience of the patient, as well as the workloads of consultants and medical facilities.
