Ambulance Patient Level Activity and Costing 2019-20

This analysis uses the Patient Level Information and Costing System (PLICS) Ambulance data for 2019-20 collected in January 2021 by NHS Digital. This data was collected in compliance with a mandatory request from NHS England and NHS Improvement.

The mandatory request lists the NHS providers identified by NHS England and NHS Improvement as required to submit PLICS Ambulance data for 2019-20.

The ambulance service for the Isle of Wight and non-NHS ambulance services were not within the scope of this collection.

The PLICS Ambulance collection for 2019-20 included all incidents going through 999 call centres or dispatch centres.

Full details of the services in and out of scope are available in the National Cost Collection guidance published by NHS England and NHS Improvement.

Each provider generated a PLICS Ambulance data extract using the costing data held on their local PLICS system, in accordance with the Information Standard.

For each incident, the data submitted included an activity record and costs relating to that activity, split by a specified list of collection activities (such as dispatch and control or patient handover) and collection resources (such as drugs and consumables or fleet resources).

Providers used a tool published by NHS England and NHS Improvement to convert their data extract into files in the required format for submission, before uploading their PLICS Ambulance submissions to a secure NHS Digital portal. Resubmissions could be made, and the most recent submission for each provider was retained.

The NHS England and NHS Improvement conversion tool required all data items to be in the correct format and all mandatory fields to be populated to generate the files for submission. The tool also generated warnings for potentially incorrect data such as negative cost activity for providers to review and improve data quality.

NHS England and NHS Improvement reviewed summary data from the PLICS Ambulance collection during the collection window.

Where data quality concerns were identified, NHS England and NHS Improvement asked the relevant providers to resubmit. Providers could also request permission to resubmit.

For providers that submitted close to the deadline, there will have been less opportunity to review data quality and arrange resubmission.

The latest submission from each provider was retained.

The PLICS Ambulance data for 2019-20 was pseudonymised and released to NHS England and NHS Improvement. This data will be used in the National Cost Collection outputs, the PLICS Portal for submitting NHS providers, and other tools and analysis.