Encompass

Encompass is a new electronic patient record system that will create a single digital care record for every citizen in Northern Ireland who receives health and social care. It aims to create better experiences for patients, service users and staff by bringing together information from various existing systems that do not currently communicate effectively. The programme was launched in the South Eastern Health and Social Care Trust (HSCT) on 9th November 2023. The system also went live in Belfast HSCT on 6 June 2024, and Northern HSCT on 7 November 2024. Its roll out to the final two HSCTs will be in 2025/26.

Figures provided for Belfast HSCT, Northern HSCT, and South Eastern HSCT, sourced from encompass, are considered to be ‘official statistics in development.’

The specialty classification used in encompass differs significantly from that of the legacy system. Specialties in the legacy system were recorded using Korner codes, based on the main specialty of the lead consultant, while specialties in encompass use Hospital Services, based on what the patient is being treated for. As specialties for consultant-led episodes finished on or after launch dates within these three live HSCTs are not directly comparable with episodes before this date, an additional tab ‘Volume 1b – Specialty’ has been created to present separately the data sourced from encompass.

Healthcare Resource Group (HRG) codes used in encompass for consultant-led episodes are still being developed. Therefore, ‘Volume 4 – Healthcare Resource Group (HRG)’ does not include South Eastern HSCT data for finished consultant-led episodes, nor Belfast HSCT from 6 June 2024, or Northern HSCT from 7 November 2024.

Explanatory Notes for Acute Episode-Based Activity Statistics

General Notes

The information presented in Acute Episode-Based Activity Statistics is extracted from the Hospital Inpatient System. This is sourced from both the Business Objects data warehouse Patient Administration System, and encompass (for South Eastern HSC Trust from 9th November 2023, Belfast HSC Trust from 6th June 2024, and Northern HSC Trust from 7 November 2024). The data relate to all episodes within the Acute Programme of Care only (PoC 1). Activity recorded under Maternity & Child Health, Elderly Care, Mental Health and Learning Disability (PoCs 2, 4, 6 and 7) is excluded. In addition, from 2008/09, Independent Sector activity carried out within HSC hospitals is excluded. Provided information is based on finished consultant episodes (FCEs). Only those episodes that ended during or before the final day of the financial year (31st March) are included in the figures provided for that year. However, episodes that began in a previous year (i.e. prior to 1st April) but ended during the year under consideration will be included.

The Hospital Inpatient System (HIS)

The HIS provides information on admitted patient care delivered by Health and Social Care Hospitals in Northern Ireland. It is a patient-level administrative data source and each record relates to an individual consultant episode. During a single hospital admission, a patient may be transferred from the care of one consultant to another, generating an additional consultant episode. For data prior to encompass, moves to another hospital within a Trust also start a new FCE. However, to date in encompass, this is not split out until they change consultant. Episode-based data is therefore not equivalent to admission-based data, as each admission may be made up of one or more consultant episodes. The HIS records information on patients admitted to acute hospitals as inpatients or day cases. It does not hold information on patients attending hospital as outpatients or who attended an Emergency Care Department and were not admitted, nor does it hold details of patients treated in the Primary Care setting. The HIS also does not hold details of patients admitted under any non-Acute specialties.

Data Availability

The HIS contains over half a million records for each year but, because those relate to individual admitted patients, it is not possible to allow direct, unsupervised access to them. Many questions can, however, be answered by summarising the data. For example, ‘How many admissions were there for heart attacks?’ or, ‘What was the average number of days spent in hospital for patients undergoing a coronary artery bypass graft?’ As the data are of general interest, Hospital Activity Information Branch (HAIB) publishes tables that can be downloaded free of charge from this site. Subject to resources and data confidentiality requirements, it may be possible for the Branch to provide data breakdowns beyond the scope of the tables available or to provide presentation of the data in a different format. If you require such additional information, please contact us at statistics@health-ni.gov.uk. If you require access to the entire dataset for research purposes, you may submit an application to the Honest Broker Service. Further information on eligibility and the processes involved is available on their website https://bso.hscni.net/directorates/digital/honest-broker-service/ Please exercise care when comparing HIS figures across time, as fluctuations in the data can occur for a number of reasons, for example, the roll out of encompass, organisational changes, reviews of best practice within the medical community, the adoption of new coding schemes and data-quality problems that are often year-specific. These variations can lead to false assumptions about trends. We advise users of time series data to carefully explore the relevant issues before drawing any conclusions about the reasons for year-on-year changes.

Published Data

Further analysis can be sought using the downloadable tables provided here: https://www.health-ni.gov.uk/publications/acute-episode-based-activity-202425.

Details on these tables, and additional information on this HTML publication can be found here: https://www.health-ni.gov.uk/sites/default/files/2025-12/hs-episode-based-activity-additional-info-explanatory-notes.pdf

Glossary of Terms for Acute Episode-Based Activity Statistics

Purpose

This publication presents information on acute, episode-based activity at Health and Social Care (HSCT) Trusts in Northern Ireland during the year ending 31 March 2025. It details key information on all acute activity and provides a breakdown of activity by specialty.

The data contained in this publication have been compiled from the Hospital Inpatient System (HIS), introduced from 1st April 2009. This now includes data from the encompass system, introduced on 9th November 2023 in the South Eastern HSC Trust, and rolled out across other HSC Trusts throughout 2024/25 and 2025/26.

Data detailed in this publication are available in spreadsheet format (Microsoft Excel) to aid secondary analysis, at the link https://www.health-ni.gov.uk/publications/acute-episode-based-activity-202425

Explanatory notes and a glossary of terms are available from the link https://www.health-ni.gov.uk/publications/explanatory-notes-and-technical-guidance-acute-episode-based-activity

There may be a difference between rounded figures in the tables presented here, and the downloadable data provided. This is because of rounding at different stages of the statistical process.

Please note that finished episodes in tables 6a, 6b, 7 and 8 will not sum to the finished episode totals due to incomplete coding of a small number of records. Finished episodes in table 9 will not sum to the finished episode totals due to the exclusion of South Eastern HSCT data for finished consultant-led episodes on or after 9th November 2023, Belfast HSCT data from 6th June 2024, and Northern HSCT data from 7th November 2024 following the launch of encompass.

COVID-19 is included in code U07 within chapter XXII of the diagnosis table.

Statistical Quality: Information detailed in this release is a more detailed breakdown of the Inpatient and Day Case Activity publication (released August 2025) that was quality assured with HSC Trusts prior to release.

Our statistical practice is regulated by the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR). OSR sets the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics that all producers of official statistics should adhere to. You are welcome to contact us directly with any comments about how we meet these standards. Alternatively, you can contact OSR by emailing regulation@statistics.gov.uk or via the OSR website: https://osr.statisticsauthority.gov.uk

Published by: Hospital Activity Information Branch, Information & Analysis Directorate, Department of Health

Statisticians: Emma Herd, Stephanie Anderson, Liz Graham

Contact: statistics@health-ni.gov.uk

Reporting Period: 1st April 2024 – 31st March 2025

Publication Date: 18th December 2025

Date of Next Publication 1st October 2026

Coverage: Northern Ireland

Frequency: Annually

Copyright: This publication is Crown copyright and may be reproduced free of charge in any format or medium. Any material used must be acknowledged, and the title of the publication specified.

About Hospital Activity Information Branch

Hospital Activity Information Branch is responsible for the collection, quality assurance, analysis and publication of timely and accurate information derived from a wide range of statistical information returns supplied by the Health & Social Care (HSC) Trusts. Statistical information is collected routinely from a variety of electronic patient level administrative systems and pre-defined excel survey return templates.

The Branch aims to present information in a meaningful way and provide advice on its uses to customers in the HSC Committee, Professional Advisory Groups, policy branches within the DoH, other Health organisations, academia, private sector organisations, charity/voluntary organisations as well as the general public. The statistical information collected is used to contribute to major exercises such as reporting on the performance of the HSC system, other comparative performance exercises, target setting and monitoring, development of service frameworks as well as policy formulation and evaluation. In addition, the information is used in response to a significantly high volume of Parliamentary / Assembly questions and ad-hoc queries each year.

Information is disseminated through a number of key statistical publications, including: Inpatient Activity and Outpatient Activity. These publications are available from the website https://www.health-ni.gov.uk/topics/dhssps-statistics-and-research

Further information on the Acute Episode-Based Activity data, including definitions, is available from the website https://www.health-ni.gov.uk/articles/episode-based-activity