National Hip Fracture Database: Patient Care and Outcomes for 67,302 Cases in 2019

2019 data from the National Hip Fracture Database (NHFD) covering 67,302 patients across 174 trauma units in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland. The dataset, managed by the Royal College of Physicians for the Healthcare Quality Improvement Partnership, documents case-mix, care processes, and outcomes using six key performance indicators. It is the world's largest hip fracture audit, with over 500,000 cases on record since its 2007 launch.

Use Cases

• Benchmarking hospital performance based on the six NHFD key performance indicators mentioned in the description.
• Analyzing variations in surgical, medical, and rehabilitation care outcomes for hip fracture patients.
• Studying the impact of patient demographics (e.g., age, gender) on care quality and mortality rates.
• Modeling trends in hip fracture care quality over time across different regions.

Strengths

• Covers 67,302 patient cases from a single year (2019).
• Includes data from 174 trauma units, providing broad national coverage.
• Part of a long-running audit with over 500,000 total cases, enabling longitudinal analysis.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count for the specific 2020 report dataset is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data files only refer to England and Wales, excluding Northern Ireland and the Isle of Man mentioned in the audit scope.

Provenance

Source

Government Digital Service; audit managed by the Royal College of Physicians for the Healthcare Quality Improvement Partnership.

Collection Method

Regular data uploads from participating trauma units as part of a national clinical audit.

Time Range

2019 patient data, reported in the 2020 annual report.

Freshness

Annual report for 2020, but last update date is unknown.

Geography

England, Wales, and Northern Ireland (though data files reportedly cover only England and Wales).