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Injuries

Volume 479: debated on Monday 21 July 2008

To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many people have been hospitalised following injuries caused by (a) seagulls, (b) pigeons, (c) rats and (d) other pests in each of the last five years. (220169)

This information is not available in the format requested. The following table shows the number of finished admission episodes (FAE) for those bitten by a rat in each of the last five years for which figures are available.

Admission episodes1

2006-07

27

2005-06

18

2004-05

23

2003-04

21

2002-03

21

1 FAE: A FAE is the first period of in-patient care under one consultant within one healthcare provider.

Notes:

1. Assignment of Episodes to Years

Years are assigned by the end of the first period of care in a patient’s hospital stay. Please note that admissions do not represent the number of in-patients, as a person may have more than one admission within the year.

2. Cause Code—Rat Bites*

The cause code is a supplementary code that indicates the nature of any external cause of injury, poisoning or other adverse effects.

*Rat Bites: W5—Bitten by rat

3. Data Quality

HES are compiled from data sent by over 300 national health service trusts and primary care trusts (PCTs) in England. The NHS 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.

4. Assessing growth through time

HES figures are available from 1989-90 onwards. During the years that these records have been collected 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 outpatient settings and may no longer be counted in the HES data. This may account for any reductions in activity over time.

5. 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