* = For reasons of confidentiality numbers between one and five have been suppressed and shown as ‘*’.

¹ 0n 1 October 1999 Royal Hull hospital NHS trust and East Yorkshire hospitals NHS trust merged to form the Hull and East Yorkshire hospitals NHS trust.

Notes:

1. Data quality:

Hospital episode statistics (HES) are compiled from data sent by over 300 NHS trusts, and primary care trusts (PCTs) in England. Data are also received from a number of independent sector organisations for activity commissioned by the English NHS. The information centre for health and social care liaises closely with these organisations to encourage submission of complete and valid data and seeks to minimise inaccuracies and the effect of missing and invalid data via HES processes. While this brings about improvement over time, some shortcomings remain.

2. Finished admission episodes:

A finished admission episode is the first period of in-patient care under one consultant within one health care provider. Please note that admissions do not represent the number of in-patients, as a person may have more than one admission within the year.

Admission method codes used:

21 = Emergency: via accident and emergency (A and E) services, including the casualty department of the provider

22 = Emergency: via general practitioner (GP)

23 = Emergency: via bed bureau, including the central bureau

24 = Emergency: via consultant out-patient clinic

28 = Emergency: other means, including patients who arrive via the A and E department of another health care provider

3. Assessing growth through time:

HES figures are available from 1989-90 onwards. During the years that these records have been collected by the NHS there have been ongoing improvements in quality and coverage. These improvements in information submitted by the NHS have been particularly marked in the earlier years and need to be borne in mind when analysing time series.

Changes in NHS practice also need to be borne in mind when analysing time series. For example a number of procedures may now be undertaken in out-patient settings and may no longer be accounted in the HES data. This may account for any reductions in activity over time.

4. Low numbers:

Due to reasons of confidentiality, figures between one and five have been suppressed and replaced with ‘*’ (an asterisk).

5. All diagnoses count of mentions:

These figures represent a count of all mentions of a diagnosis in any of the 14 diagnosis fields in the HES data set. Therefore, if a diagnosis is mentioned in more than one diagnosis field during an episode, all diagnoses are counted.

Diagnosis codes used:

F10—Mental and behavioural disorders due to use of alcohol

K70—Alcoholic liver disease

T51—Toxic effect of Alcohol

6. Ungrossed Data:

Figures have not been adjusted for shortfalls in data (i.e. the data are ungrossed).

Source:

Hospital Episode Statistics (HES), The Information Centre for Health and Social Care