UK Hospital and Community Service Reference Costs for 2018-19

Reference Costs provide indicators of the unit costs for hospital and community services at the trust and hospital level. The data is derived from electronic hospital activity systems and financial returns for the 2018-19 period. It is published by the Government Digital Service under an open government license.

Use Cases

• Benchmarking hospital service costs based on unit cost indicators.
• Analyzing financial efficiency of healthcare trusts based on activity and cost data.
• Modeling healthcare resource allocation based on reference cost data.

Strengths

• Data is derived from official electronic hospital activity systems and financial returns.
• Provides cost indicators at both trust and individual hospital levels.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Last update date is unknown; freshness unverified.

Provenance

Source

Government Digital Service

Collection Method

Derived from electronic hospital activity systems and Health Service Trust financial and information returns.

Time Range

2018-19

Freshness

Data covers the 2018-19 period; last update date is unknown.

Geography

Likely United Kingdom, based on the platform and source.