Specialist advice activity data

The latest data are available by ‘type of specialist advice’. For the purposes of the ‘system elective recovery outpatient collection (EROC)’, the different types are categorised as:

• Pre-referral Advice & Guidance (A&G)
• Post-referral’ triage services that offer specialist advice
• Other’ equivalent models.

The System EROC requires ICBs to coordinate and submit monthly specialist advice activity data from all organisations raising specialist advice requests from within their ICB, and details relating to the organisation responding to the request.

The ICB level data provides a national view of specialist advice requests raised across England. This dataset is available by ICB, type of specialist advice and specialty grouping.

The Provider level data represents a subset of the national dataset. This is based on the organisation responding to the request. This dataset is available by acute NHS providers, type of specialist advice and specialty grouping.

The data are presented as total requests, processed requests, and diverted requests. Full data definitions relating to the types of specialist advice, measures and categorisations are included here.

Additional information relating to scope of System EROC, types of specialist advice and specialty groupings are included in the latest data files.

England time series data by type and measure:

Time series data available by ICB and provider:

Full dataset (csv) from April 2022:

Interpreting the data
Data are available from April 2022 to the latest available reporting period.

The data included here will always include the latest available data as reported by ICBs. This means that the latest position is subject to change as we receive more detail relating to the outcome and status of the specialist advice requests.

This is particularly relevant when viewing activity data for ‘Processed’ and ‘Diverted’ requests, due to a lag in the reporting of outcomes and statuses for requests that are raised toward the end of the reporting period. This lag in the underlying data means that there is an expected general downward trend for these measures in the most recent months. This reporting gap should reduce over time as the data are refreshed each month.

As this is a relatively new data collection, having launched in August 2021, we advise caution when interpreting these data as we continue to improve data quality.

Please note: From June 2025 the presentation of the specialist advice management information has been updated. Previously, the activity was categorised into specialties in, and out of, scope of the elective recovery fund (ERF). Due to changes to the ERF for 2025/26 this breakdown has been removed from the xlsx file. The ICB and Provider files have been extended to include the full published time series data from April 2022, rather than the latest 12 months. The breakdown by specialties can still be accessed in the published csv data files. 

As the data reported through the System EROC are submitted based on the ICB geography applicable to the reporting period. Data from April 2026 onwards use the ICB geography implemented on 1 April 2026, while data prior to April 2026 use the legacy ICB geography. Separate Excel files are therefore provided for each time series, with the complete dataset available in the accompanying CSV file.

Contact Details

  • For further information about the published management information relating to outpatient recovery and transformation, please contact us at  england.electivepmo@nhs.net.
  • For media enquires or freedom of information request please refer to the statistics contact us.