This is a report on admitted patient care activity in English NHS hospitals and English NHS-commissioned activity in the independent sector. This annual publication covers the financial year ending March 2016. It contains final data and replaces the provisional data that are released each month.

The data are taken from the Hospital Episodes Statistics (HES) data warehouse. HES contains records of all admissions, appointments and attendances for patients at NHS hospitals in England. The HES data used in this publication are called 'Finished Consultant Episodes', and each episode relates to a period of care for a patient under a single consultant at a single hospital. Therefore this report counts the number of episodes of care for admitted patients rather than the number of patients. This publication shows the number of episodes during the period, with a number of breakdowns including by patient's age, gender, diagnosis, procedure involved and by provider.

The purpose of this publication is to inform and support strategic and policy-led processes for the benefit of patient care. This document will also be of interest to researchers, journalists and members of the public interested in NHS hospital activity in England.