Provisional Monthly Hospital Episode Statistics for Admitted Patient Care, Outpatients and Accident and Emergency Data - April 2012 to December 2012

Monthly HES data for Admitted Patient Care

In the year from January 2012 to December 2012 there were:

· 17.8 million finished consultant episodes (FCEs), 59.7 per cent (10.6 million) of which included at least one procedure or intervention, and 6.1 million of which were day cases.

· 15.2 million finished admission episodes (FAEs), of which 5.4 million were emergency admissions.

Monthly HES - Admitted Patient Care Clinical Coding Coverage

The shortfall between the most recent month's data is more pronounced when considering clinical (procedures and diagnoses) coverage.  4.0 per cent more procedures and 7.4 per cent more diagnoses were coded in the HES data submitted to SUS by 22/02/2013 (Month 10) - extract used for this publication, compared to the HES data submitted to SUS by 23/01/2013 (Month 9) used for 13th March 2013 publication.  We accordingly recommend extra caution using clinical codes for the most recent month's data.

Monthly HES data for Outpatients

In the year from January 2012 to December 2012 there were:

· 93.5 million outpatient appointments made, with 75.1 million (80.3 per cent) of these attended by the patient.

· 6.8 million outpatient appointments not attended by the patient, representing 7.3 per cent of all appointments.

Provisional Monthly HES data for Accident & Emergency (Experimental data)

In the year from January 2012 to December 2012 there were:

18.3 million A&E attendances recorded in A&E HES.  Of these, 3.8 million (20.7 per cent) resulted in admission to hospital for inpatient treatment, 3.7 million (20.1 per cent) resulted in a GP follow up and 7.1 million (39.0 per cent) were discharged with no follow up.

ToI: Liver Disease

• There were 34,646 admissions with a primary diagnosis of liver diseases, a 1.6% (557) increase from the same period a year earlier

• Nearly half of admissions were for Alcoholic liver disease (47.7%; 16,513) and over two thirds of these were for males (67.9%; 11,206).

• For alcoholic liver disease admission rates were highest for patients aged in their 50s whereas for liver diseases other than alcoholic liver admission rates were highest for patients aged in their late 60s or 70s.

• There was a high percentage of emergency admissions for Hepatic failure (85.2%; 1,840), and for alcoholic liver disease (69.9%; 11,550) compared to 35.2% of all finished admission episodes.

• The rate of all liver disease was highest in the North East region (2,403; 92.5 per 100,000) whereas the rate of alcoholic liver disease was highest in the North west region (3,613; 51.2 per 100,000). The rate of Fibrosis and cirrhosis was highest in the East of England (979; 16.7 per 100,000).

• Compared to the same period a year earlier the North West saw the greatest increase in admission rates for liver disease (from 77.2 to 87.1 per 100,000) and this is largely attributed to an increase in the rate of admissions for alcoholic liver disease (an increase of 378 admissions to 3,613; or an admission rate increase of 45.8 to 51.2 per 100,000 population).

• Nearly a third (11,337; 32.7%) of admission episodes for liver disease did not require a procedure and only 0.9% of admissions (295) required Transplantation of liver (J01).

• Compared to 1.4% (210,171) of all hospital spells, 8.8% (3,040) of all liver diseases resulted in a death in hospital. The percentage was highest specifically for alcoholic liver disease (12.3%; 2,032 out of 16,513) and hepatic failure (18.1%; 391 out of 2,519) and was notable across all age groups e.g. all liver disease admissions aged 30-49: 7.2% (736 out of 10,175) and aged 50-69: 9.2%; (1,573 out of 17,136).