Publication, Part of Ambulance Patient Level Activity and Costing
Ambulance Patient Level Activity and Costing 2019-20
Experimental statistics, Official statistics in development
Activity and cost analysis
The PLICS Ambulance data set includes mandatory and required data items.
For a PLICS Ambulance data submission to be accepted, all mandatory data items must be completed with valid values. Mandatory data items are therefore 100% complete for all providers, although other data quality issues may be found when analysing such data.
Required data items may be left blank in a submission, either because the provider does not hold the relevant data in their information systems, or the data item does not apply to an incident. Completeness of each required data item may vary significantly between submitting providers.
This first analysis of PLICS Ambulance data reports on:
- incident outcome – a mandatory data item
- response type – a mandatory data item
- number of response units arriving at a healthcare provider – a required data item which had high data completeness for all providers
For each of these breakdowns, variation between providers should be interpreted with caution as it may reflect differences in how data has been extracted from local systems for submission to the PLICS Ambulance collection rather than true variation in services provided.
Incident outcome
In the PLICS Ambulance data set, each incident is reported to have one of four possible outcomes:
- Hear and Treat – clinical advice is provided, or the patient is referred to an appropriate service. No ambulance trust vehicle or staff arrive at the scene
- See and Treat - an emergency response arrives at the scene, and the patient is treated and discharged at the scene
- See and Convey - an emergency response arrives at the scene, and one or more patients is conveyed by ambulance to a healthcare provider
- Other Scenario – including hoax calls, incomplete and cancelled calls
Incidents with the same outcome would be expected to require similar resources and have similar costs.
More detail on the definition of each incident outcome is included in the National Cost Collection guidance published by NHS England and NHS Improvement.
Half of all reported incidents were See and Convey incidents, accounting for 68% of the total reported cost.
Response types for See and Treat incidents
The response type or types arriving on scene are reported for each ambulance incident.
The response type reported was not consistent with other submitted information about the incident for 18% of See and Treat incidents and 24% of total See and Treat costs. (For example, more or fewer response types were listed than the reported total number of response units arriving on scene.)
Where the response type was consistent with other information, 88% of the total cost related to the 93% of incidents for which a single response unit arrived on scene:
| Response type arriving on scene | Percentage of total reported See and Treat incidents | Percentage of total reported See and Treat incident costs |
|---|---|---|
| Double Crewed Ambulance (Emergency) | 79% | 77% |
| Rapid Response Vehicle | 9% | 7% |
| Other specified response type | 3% | 2% |
| Other co-responding team | 2% | 1% |
| Unknown | 0.4% | 0.2% |
| Sub-total: 1 response unit | 93% | 88% |
| 2 response units | 6% | 9% |
| More than 2 response units | 1% | 3% |
In this table response units such as motorbikes and hazardous area response team vehicles are grouped together as ‘Other specified response type’. Activity counts and total costs for each response type are included in the csv file published alongside this report.
Response units for See and Convey incidents
The number of response units arriving at a healthcare provider is reported for each See and Convey incident.
The number of response units was missing or zero (which is not consistent with a See and Convey incident) for 4% of See and Convey incidents and 3% of total See and Convey costs.
Where the number of response units was submitted and was consistent with a See and Convey incident, almost all (97%) of the total reported cost related to incidents for which a single response unit arrived at a healthcare provider:
| Response units arriving at a healthcare provider | Percentage of total reported See and Convey incidents | Percentage of total reported See and Convey incident costs |
|---|---|---|
| 1 response unit | 98.7% | 97.2% |
| 2 response units | 1.2% | 2.4% |
| More than 2 response units | 0.1% | 0.4% |
Last edited: 12 May 2021 3:46 pm