§ Mr. BurstowTo ask the Secretary of State for Health what progress has been made towards achieving the national priorities guidance performance target to reduce the per capita rate of growth in emergency readmissions of people aged 75 years or over; and for what reasons the data collection for emergency admissions was changed to an all age base from 2003–04. [146208]
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§ Dr. LadymanThe performance target for the rate of emergency readmissions within 28 days of discharge for patients of all ages as set out in the priorities and planning framework for 2003–06, "Improvement, Expansion and Reform", is that there will be no growth. The rate at Quarter 4, 2002–03 was 5.5 per cent. The latest information available is the Quarter 2, 2003–04 figure, which shows no growth.
The target, and subsequently the collection of monitoring information on emergency readmissions, was changed from that relating only to patients aged 75 because it was perceived as being ageist in that older people could be denied access to hospital services in order to meet a performance target. Emergency readmissions targets and data collections have, therefore, covered all ages since 2002.