§ Mr. Silvesterasked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will publish the hospitalisation index for all specialties for all health districts in England in rank order, taking the national average as 100.
§ Mr. Kenneth ClarkeWe cannot give full national information of this kind yet but we are taking steps to ensure that we will soon be able to do so.
The set of performance indicators which we published in September 1983 contained, for five acute specialties, the gross admission rate per 1,000 population served in 1981 for each district health authority in England. A copy of the national summary is in the Library.
We will be issuing performance indicators for use on a micro-computer to all health authorities again in July 1985. One indicator will show the hospitalisation rate in 1983 for all residents of the district, wherever they were treated, for all acute specialties combined. The rate is calculated by standardising the resident population for its age and sex mix, and its morbidity.
Other performance indicators will provide crude hospitalisation rates for residents treated in their home district for mental handicap, mental illness and for elderly patients respectively.
Values for these performance indicators will be given for all health districts in England and will be ranked within the national perspective. The England average for each indicator will be shown alongside district values.