A major new study led by the University of Sheffield and published in BMJ Open has revealed that up to one-third of A&E attendances and two-fifths of acute admissions could potentially be managed through same-day emergency care (SDEC) and community settings - keeping patients safe and receiving treatment without an overnight hospital stay.
With support for information governance, data curation and data validation from Data Connect, researchers analysed local data directly from NHS hospitals in South Yorkshire, alongside aggregated results from across the UK.
Unlocking data, protecting privacy
To analyse over 1.5 million emergency visits securely, the team used a ‘federated’ approach. Instead of moving sensitive patient-level data to a central database, the data remained in regional data environments and only the anonymous, aggregated results were shared.
This secure collaboration was made possible using a Trusted Research Environment - a highly secure cloud platform at the University of Sheffield - where only approved researchers can analyse complex, pseudonymised data.
By safely unlocking NHS data, this research provides healthcare leaders with vital insights needed to reduce A&E wait times and acute admissions, improve local services, and ensure patients get the right care, faster.
Read the full paper: bmjopen.bmj.com/content/16/6/e115446.
Further insights
The value of this secure data collection has extended even further with the publication of two additional papers, aimed at tackling UK emergency care pressures:
- Winter all year round in urgent and emergency care: a large retrospective analysis of routinely collected NHS data across England, 2021–2022
A major study published in BMC Health Services Research revealed that our emergency departments operate at near-capacity all year round, proving that NHS pressures require year-round solutions, not just winter planning. Read the full paper: doi.org/10.1186/s12913-026-14253-3 - Adoption of high-sensitivity cardiac troponin for risk stratification of patients with suspected myocardial infarction: a multicentre cohort study
This research looked at how hospitals use advanced blood tests (called high-sensitivity troponin) to safely rule out heart attacks. It found that while the tests are incredibly accurate at identifying low-risk patients, more could be safely discharged sooner - helping to free up A&E beds. Read the full paper: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38975590