Nuffield Trust Focus on: Emergency hospital care for children and young people (24 April 2017)

Summary

This QualityWatch report, ‘Focus on: Emergency hospital care for children and young people’, shows changes in patterns of use over time and provides the basis for discussion about the quality of care for children and young people.

The report analyses Hospital Episode Statistics from 2006/07 to 2015/16, giving a picture of how children and young people used emergency care at NHS hospitals over the past 10 years, what conditions they needed care for, and what may be happening to care quality in some areas.

It finds that some age groups saw significant rises in emergency admissions, and many children were hospitalised for conditions that could be treated in other settings. The report, therefore, also raises questions about where children and young people can access high quality treatment outside the hospital emergency care setting.