§ Mr. Dobsonasked the Secretary of State for Social Services (1) whether his Department defines as a single medical episode a patient's pregnancy, including any tests or treatment arising therefrom, and also her subsequent childbirth;
(2) whether his Department defines a medical episode as including all consultation, diagnosis and treatment during a patient's illness;
(3) whether his Department defines a medical episode as including (a) foreseeable complications and (b) unforeseeable complications following treatment, respectively.
§ Mr. Kenneth ClarkeThere is at present no formal definition of a medical episode. For statistical purposes, inpatients are counted on discharge from a hospital. Inpatient discharges (including deaths) are normally referred to as inpatient cases and each case covers the continuous stay by a patient in one hospital. The health services information group has recommended in its first report that information about specialty activity should be in terms of consultant episodes and not hospital stays. The group defines a consultant episode as the time a patient spends continuously in the care of one consultant in the same district health authority while occupying a hospital bed. We have asked health authorities to plan on the basis that the recommendations in the first report should be implemented by April 1987.