The scope of the Activity based funding: Emergency service care National Best Endeavours Data Set (NBEDS) is emergency services provided in activity based funded hospitals which do not meet all of the following criteria:

• Purposely designated and equipped area with designated assessment; treatment and resuscitation areas.
• Ability to provide resuscitation, stabilisation and initial management of all emergencies.
• Availability of medical staff available in the hospital 24 hours a day.
• Designated emergency department nursing staff 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and a designated emergency department nursing unit manager.

The care provided to patients in emergency services is, in most instances, recognised as being provided to non-admitted patients. Patients being treated in emergency services may subsequently become admitted. All patients remain in-scope for this collection until they are recorded as having physically departed the emergency service, regardless of whether they have been admitted. For this reason there is an overlap in the scope of this NBEDS and the Admitted patient care National Minimum Data Set (APC NMDS).

The scope also includes services where patients did not wait to be attended by a health care professional and those dead on arrival. Patients with Department of Veterans' Affairs or compensable funding source are also included in the scope of the collection.

Excluded from the scope are:

• Care provided to patients in General Practitioner (GP) co-located units. However, patient presentations that result in a referral to a GP co-located unit after registration, but before commencement of clinical care, are in scope.