Consultation on proposed changes to Emergency Care Data Set (ECDS) v4.0 Questionnaire Survey

Overview

The Emergency Care Data Set (ECDS) is the national data set for Urgent and Emergency Care.

It was developed in 2017 to collect national data to help better understand how and why people attend emergency care departments.

The ECDS v4.0 changes will introduce a new set of data fields designed to improve patient outcomes across Urgent and Emergency Care. These have been developed in consultation with the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, the Same Day Emergency Care (SDEC) Programme, National Urgent Treatment Centre Programme and Clinical Review of Standards (CRS) Programme which are run by NHS England.

The changes are also focused on updating ECDS in line with current clinical and data recording practices.

In summary, the high level changes in v4.0 include:

- Change to the way Virtual Care is recorded.

- Change to the way SDEC activity is recorded.

- Change to how activity relating to prevention of violence and injury (ISTV) is collected.

- Introduction of new Assessment Tools.

- Introduction of new Data Groups and other changes to align ECDS with the wider CDS v6.3.

- Introduction of expanded list of Diagnosis SNOMED CT codes.

- Replacing number of Date and Time items with ISO Timestamps.

- Retirement of the Patient Pathway ECDS structure.

- Introduction of changes to individual SNOMED Refsets, where required.

Why your views matter

As part of the assurance and approval process to modify ECDS we are seeking feedback on:

• The impact of implementing the changes to ECDS in Emergency Departments.
• The expected costs and timescales to implement the changes.
• Any issues relating to new definitions.

We are seeking to ensure that those people with either an operational or strategic interest in ECDS have an opportunity to influence the development of the ECDS Information Standard. If you would like to take part, please complete the questionnaire on behalf of your organisation.

To get a broad view of the impact of the proposed change, you may need to discuss the survey with other members of your organisation - for example colleagues with clinical, operational and informatics knowledge.

Completion guidance

When completing this questionnaire, please note the following:

• Please do your best to ensure there is only one survey submitted from your organisation.
• Answer all questions and provide further detail where applicable.
• Responses should be submitted by 18/07/2022.
• The questionnaire has been written for completion by service providers, system suppliers and middleware suppliers, as well as users of ECDS data and the wider public (including patients). Please consider the questions in context of your specific role.

1. Providers:
   • Please complete every question to the best of your ability.
   • We recommend that the response is co-ordinated by the Head of IT / Head of Informatics.
2. System and Middleware Suppliers:
   • Please complete estimated cost information on a PER Emergency Department (ED) basis.
   • You do not need to complete any questions relating to ongoing costs to EDs.
   • Estimated timescales should be the time to complete the rollout to at least HALF of your affected customer base.

This Microsoft Word version has been produced to support colleagues in considering the questions included in the questionnaire in advance of completing and submitting these online via the Citizen Space consultation hub.

Before answering the questions, please make sure you are familiar with:

• The recorded webinars and supporting materials via the ECDS Forum explaining the changes.
• The DRAFT ECDS Technical Output Specification v4.0. Please note this document is reflecting the current position and is a subject to additional changes, as we take on board the feedback received from this survey and the webinars held and upcoming including number of internal and external stakeholders.

If you have any questions when completing the survey please contact  enquiries@nhsdigital.nhs.uk.

What happens next

Thank you for taking the time to complete this questionnaire, the feedback received will be used to further develop the implementation roadmap and support offerings for the data set.