Data are available between 1997-98 and 2006-07. This information has been placed in the Library.
Data on finished consultant episodes (FCEs) with a primary diagnosis of obesity as well as a main procedure of bariatric surgery are provided in the following table. Data are available between 1997-98 to 2006-07.
Activity in English NHS Hospitals and English NHS commissioned activity in the independent sector Strategic health authority 2006-07 2005-06 2004-05 2003-04 2002-03 2001-02 2000-01 1999-2000 1998-99 1997-98 England Total 1,890 998 711 451 334 279 250 193 187 143 Q01 Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire Strategic Health Authority — 39 24 12 9 6 7 2 3 6 Q02 Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire Strategic Health Authority — 28 17 9 6 8 7 2 3 2 Q03 Essex Strategic Health Authority — 11 13 7 5 3 5 4 0 1 Q04 North West London Strategic Health Authority — 68 44 11 13 5 5 3 1 1 Q05 North Central London Strategic Health Authority — 29 15 11 5 2 3 5 0 2 Q06 North East London Strategic Health Authority — 24 9 4 3 1 2 1 1 0 Q07 South East London Strategic Health Authority — 30 23 18 11 13 18 11 4 3 Q08 South West London Strategic Health Authority — 33 20 11 11 5 7 7 2 3 Q09 Northumberland, Tyne and Wear Strategic Health Authority — 43 28 19 11 9 8 8 9 7 Q10 County Durham and Tees Valley Strategic Health Authority — 17 13 5 5 7 6 3 4 2 Q11 North and East Yorkshire and Northern Lincolnshire Strategic Health Authority — 135 60 37 20 19 8 15 12 4 Q12 West Yorkshire Strategic Health Authority — 57 51 62 40 38 56 42 30 30 Q13 Cumbria and Lancashire Strategic Health Authority — 11 18 17 11 14 9 14 7 7 Q14 Greater Manchester Strategic Health Authority — 20 21 15 9 4 9 5 7 6 Q15 Cheshire and Merseyside Strategic Health Authority — 8 33 32 41 36 24 7 17 8 Q16 Thames Valley Strategic Health Authority — 12 9 6 9 6 7 4 0 0 Q17 Hampshire and Isle of Wight Strategic Health Authority — 2 4 3 0 1 0 3 4 2 Q18 Kent and Medway Strategic Health Authority — 12 17 5 5 9 4 3 2 2 Q19 Surrey and Sussex Strategic Health Authority — 33 20 14 11 13 9 6 5 0 Q20 Avon, Gloucestershire and Wiltshire Strategic Health Authority — 57 19 12 1 3 0 3 3 4 Q21 South West Peninsula Strategic Health Authority — 33 22 12 12 24 7 12 6 5 Q22 Dorset and Somerset Strategic Health Authority — 31 13 4 3 1 4 2 1 0 Q23 South Yorkshire Strategic Health Authority — 107 88 59 40 23 18 15 17 23 Q24 Trent Strategic Health Authority — 82 41 19 21 14 14 5 7 10 Q25 Leicestershire, Northamptonshire and Rutland Strategic Health Authority — 19 33 11 8 2 4 0 4 3 Q26 Shropshire and Staffordshire Strategic Health Authority — 23 21 18 11 3 3 3 11 3 Q27 Birmingham and the Black Country Strategic Health Authority — 25 20 12 10 7 3 6 25 7 Q28 West Midlands South Strategic Health Authority — 8 15 6 3 2 3 2 2 2 Q30 North East Strategic Health Authority 106 — — — — — — — — — Q31 North West Strategic Health Authority 76 — — — — — — — — — Q32 Yorkshire and the Humber Strategic Health Authority 435 — — — — — — — — — Q33 East Midlands Strategic Health Authority 205 — — — — — — — — — Q34 West Midlands Strategic Health Authority 240 — — — — — — — — — Q35 East of England Strategic Health Authority 86 — — — — — — — — — Q36 London Strategic Health Authority 292 — — — — — — — — — Q37 South East Coast Strategic Health Authority 138 — — — — — — — — — Q38 South Central Strategic Health Authority 110 — — — — — — — — — Q39 South West Strategic Health Authority 202 — — — — — — — — — U England—not otherwise specified 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 Other, foreign and unknown Strategic Health Authorities 12 6 21 29 12 10 8 6 10 7 Notes: Finished Consultant Episode (FCE) 1. A FCE is defined as a continuous 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. *Primary diagnosis 2. The primary diagnosis is the first of up to 20 (14 from 2002-03 to 2006-07 and seven prior to 2002-03) diagnosis fields in the Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) data set and provides the main reason why the patient was in hospital. E66—Obesity. Number of episodes in which the patient had a (named) primary diagnosis 3. These figures represent the number of episodes where the diagnosis was recorded in the primary diagnosis field in a HES record. **Main procedure 4. The main procedure is the first recorded procedure or intervention in the HES data set and is usually the most resource intensive procedure or intervention performed during the episode. It is appropriate to use main procedure when looking at admission details, e.g. time waited, but a more complete count of episodes with a particular procedure is obtained by looking at the main and the secondary procedure. Data Quality 5. HES are compiled from data sent by more than 300 NHS trusts and primary care trusts (PCTs) in England. Data is 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. Assessing growth through time 6. 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. 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. 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 for in the HES data. This may account for any reductions in activity over time. Ungrossed Data 7. Figures have not been adjusted for shortfalls in the data, i.e. the data are ungrossed. Primary Care Trust (PCT)/Strategic Health Authority (SHA) data quality 8. PCT and SHA data was added to historic data years in the HES database using 2002-03 boundaries, as a one-off exercise in 2004. The quality of the data on PCT of treatment and SHA of treatment is poor in 1996-97, 1997-98 and 1998-99, with over a third of all finished episodes having missing values in these years. Data quality of PCT of GP practice and SHA of GP practice in 1997-98 and 1998-99 is also poor, with a high proportion missing values where practices changed or ceased to exist. There is less change in completeness of the residence-based fields over time, where the majority of unknown values are due to missing postcodes on birth episodes. Users of time series analysis including these years need to be aware of these issues in their interpretation of the data. Source: Hospital Episode Statistics (HES), The NHS Information Centre for health and social care
The following information needs to be taken into account when interpreting these data.
In 2006-07 there was a SHA configuration change, where 28 SHAs merged into 10. Data for 2006-07 are based on the new configuration.
There is a large increase in episodes between 2005-06 and 2006-07. The Information Centre have studied this and believe it to be due to the change/increase in OPCS-4 coding classifications. In previous years procedures may have been coded under an ‘unknown’ or ‘other’ code and therefore would not have been included in the count. However, some extra codes have been introduced in OPCS-4.3 these procedures would now be coded under their named field and be included within the count.
The number of FCEs does not represent the number of patients as a patient may have more than one episode within a year.
The NHS Information Centre have broken down information by SHA only.