A national picture of acute medical care.
Understanding how acute medical services deliver care is the first step towards making them better.
The Society for Acute Medicine Benchmarking Audit (SAMBA) brings together information from participating UK hospitals to understand patient acuity, timeliness of assessment, pathways through hospital and outcomes after seven days.
Through national reporting and confidential feedback to individual participating units, SAMBA supports meaningful benchmarking, informed discussion and improvement in acute medical services.
SAMBA26 — latest audit cycle
Access the latest approved cycle information and participant documents. The phase and resources are maintained by SAMBA editors in WordPress.
Latest cycle update
SAMBA26 data collection and the stated upload deadline have passed. The national report will be added when SAM publishes it. The original collection documents remain available for reference.
SAMBA26 participant documents
Documents retained for reference to this completed collection cycle. For the next cycle, use its separately published materials.
What does SAMBA tell us?
SAMBA looks beyond a single hospital performance measure. It brings together who is receiving acute medical care, how services are configured, where patients are assessed, how quickly care is delivered and what happens after the initial presentation.
Acuity and complexity
Patient demographics, early warning scores, frailty and other characteristics collected under the relevant cycle protocol.
Assessment and review
Timeliness of clinical assessment and consultant review, with relevant clinical quality indicators and defined starting points.
Where care happens
How patients move through ED, AMU, SDEC and other parts of the acute pathway, including location-of-care measures where included.
Workforce and organisation
Hospital and unit arrangements, staffing and service configuration, helping interpret differences in pathways and performance.
What happens next
Same-day discharge, inpatient care and follow-up outcomes, including those observed seven days after the snapshot.
Pressure and flow
Where included in the cycle, measures of crowding, corridor care and delays affecting safe acute medical assessment.
Understanding assessment and review times
From hospital arrival. An arrival-based interval describes the total elapsed time experienced by a patient. It can include time before referral to an acute medical team and is useful for understanding the wider system.
From referral to acute medicine. A referral-based interval helps examine what happens after the request for acute medical assessment. SAMBA26 introduced additional referral-based measures alongside historically comparable indicators.
Do not compare unlike intervals or attribute every delay to one clinical team. Definitions, eligible populations and denominators must follow each cycle's protocol. The precise pathway differs for patients referred directly to AMU or SDEC.
How SAMBA works.
A consistent national audit relies on local teams. The exact inclusion criteria, dates and definitions are set by each year's approved protocol.
Prepare and register
Register each hospital site as instructed, agree the local audit lead, plan staffing and obtain the required audit and Caldicott approvals.
Collect the snapshot
Record eligible patients and the defined service information over the audit's specified 24-hour period, using approved materials.
Complete follow-up
Collect the required seven-day outcomes, validate records and submit through the designated secure SAMBA route before the specified deadline.
Interpret and improve
Review national reporting and confidential local benchmarking, discuss differences in context, and identify priorities for service improvement.
Important: The public SAMBA website provides approved blank templates and information only. Completed masterlists and patient-level records must never be uploaded to the site's public WordPress Media Library.
Go to current-cycle documents →Reports, publications and audit documents.
Explore published SAMBA national reports, research and audit-cycle documents. Historical reports remain available when a new cycle begins; draft and confidential unit-level results are never displayed here.
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Your SAMBA results. Your next improvement.
SAMBA is more than a national report. Its greatest value comes when teams examine their own results, understand variation and make careful, measurable changes to care.
Know what you are comparing
Check definitions, denominators, case mix and differences in service configuration. Consider the limitations of a snapshot and whether patterns persist in local data.
Identify the underlying causes
Talk to patients and the multidisciplinary team. Map the pathway to determine whether delays arise before referral, during assessment, or because onward flow is restricted.
Test, measure and share
Set a clear improvement aim, choose outcome, process and balancing measures, test changes in PDSA cycles, and share honest learning with other services.
Participation, governance and frequently asked questions.
A reliable national audit depends on appropriate local permissions, confidentiality and consistent data definitions. Start with the protocol for the cycle you are participating in.
Who can participate in SAMBA?
UK hospitals receiving acutely unwell medical patients are invited to participate in accordance with the current protocol. If your service configuration differs from a conventional AMU or SDEC model, contact the SAMBA team for advice about eligibility and data collection.
Does each hospital site register separately?
The published SAMBA26 guidance required registration for each participating hospital site, including separate hospitals within the same Trust. Always use the current cycle's instructions because the registration process can change.
What approvals are required?
Follow your local clinical audit registration process and Caldicott Guardian arrangements, as specified in the current protocol. Keep the relevant approvals in accordance with your organisation's governance procedures.
Can identifiable patient information be uploaded?
Do not upload patient-identifiable information to this public site. The current SAMBA protocol governs the permitted data items, linkage arrangements, secure collection method and retention. Completed local masterlists require secure local handling; use only the approved collection system.
Will hospital-level results be publicly identified?
The published SAMBA approach is to share national findings publicly and provide participating units with confidential local comparative reports. Consult the current protocol and agreed data-sharing arrangements for precise terms, limitations and legal obligations.
How should we interpret a difference from the national benchmark?
Start by checking the audit measure, denominator, case mix, service pathway and local context. A one-day snapshot alone cannot establish why a difference exists or whether a change is sustained. Follow up with local measurement and QI work.
Where can I request my local report or correct a query?
Contact the SAMBA team at samba@acutemedicine.org.uk . Unit reports are not made publicly accessible through this page.
From national evidence to better acute medical care.
Use SAMBA to understand the challenges, benchmark responsibly and support meaningful service improvement.