The number of live birth episodes recorded in each year from 1997-98 to 2006-07 are given in the following table. Before 1997-08 problems with data quality of the maternity data mean that figures are not available.
The figure for each year shows the number of live born recorded births with a primary or secondary diagnosis of Down's syndrome which have taken place in a national health service hospital or in an unspecified location. It does not show births that have taken place in a location that is known to be outside of an NHS hospital setting.
Live born birth episodes2006-073732005-063612004-053632003-043122002-033102001-022862000-012771999-20003031998-992711997-98329 Notes:1. Finished Consultant Episode (FCE): A finished consultant episode (FCE) is defined as a period of admitted patient care under one consultant within one health care provider. FCEs are counted against the year in which the FCE finishes. Please note that the figures do not represent the number of patients, as a person may have more than one episode of care within the year. (Episode type used: 3—Birth event 6—Other Birth event)2. 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 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.3. 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.4. Some of the increase in figures for later years (particularly 2006-07 onwards) may be due to the improvement in the coverage of independent sector activity.5. 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 accounted in the HES data. This may account for any reductions in activity over time.6. Number of episodes in which the patient had a (named) primary or secondary diagnosis: These figures represent the number of episodes where the diagnosis was recorded in any of the 20 (14 from 2002-03 to 2006-07 and seven prior to 2002-03) primary and secondary diagnosis fields in an HES record. Each episode is only counted once in each count, even if the diagnosis is recorded in more than one diagnosis field of the record.7. Down's syndrome codes used:Q90.0—Trisomy 21, meiotic nondisjunctionQ90.1—Trisomy 21, mosaicism (mitotic nondisjunction)Q90.--Trisomy 21, translocationQ90.9—Down's syndrome, unspecified8. Liveborn codes used:Z38.0—Singleton, born in hospitalZ38.2—Singleton, unspecified as to place of birthZ38.3—Twin, born in hospitalZ38.5—Twin, unspecified as to place of birthZ38.6—Other multiple, born in hospitalZ38.8—Other multiple, unspecified as to place of birth8. Ungrossed Data: Figures have not been adjusted for shortfalls in data (i.e. the data are ungrossed).Source:HES, The NHS Information Centre for health and social care