Beyond geography: a catchment-based typology of rural and coastal urgent and emergency care sites in England

Catchment-based typology of 347 NHS England urgent and emergency care sites (63,924,015 attendances) identifies four classes, with rural-coastal sites showing lower volumes but strong summer increases.

• Why it matters: Hospital-location classification may misrepresent rural and coastal communities, limiting efforts to reduce geographical inequalities in urgent and emergency care.
• What they did: Using NHS England Emergency Care Data Set (April 2021–March 2024), attendances were linked to patients’ residential rurality and coastal proximity, then site-level rural/coastal attendance shares and service pressures were compared with national averages.
• The result: Rural-coastal sites had lower average attendance volumes with pronounced summer increases, while urban sites had higher ambulance-arrival and high-acuity proportions, enabling transparent planning and monitoring across service contexts.