Malnutrition occurs when a deficiency, excess or imbalance of energy, protein, and other nutrients causes measurable adverse effects on tissue, function and clinical outcome.
Data on child malnutrition levels in each of the last 10 years can be obtained from the hospital episodes statistics (HES) which uses the international classification for diseases (ICD) to record and collate hospital admissions data. Malnutrition is defined by a primary diagnosis between the ICD-10 codes E40 to E46. The data from HES for child malnutrition in each of the last 10 years is shown in the table.
Finished admission episodes Patient counts 1995-96 22 n/a 1996-97 38 n/a 1997-98 43 21 1998-99 26 14 1999-2000 24 18 2000-01 24 20 2001-02 15 14 2002-03 22 19 2003-04 18 14 2004-05 16 15 Source: HES, The Information Centre for health and social care