§ Lord Mottistoneasked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they will explain the discrepancy between the hospital admission and readmission figures for sufferers from schizophrenia in 1989–90 and those in 1974–84.
§ Baroness CumberlegeData produced post 1987–88 are not directly comparable with data for previous years. Apart from problems with quality and coverage data from the Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) system differ from data produced from the Mental Health Enquiry (MHE) in two fundamental ways—
- (i) HES allows analyses of both primary and secondary diagnoses whereas MHE only counts primary diagnoses.
- (ii) Under HES, diagnostic codes are appended to the record on completion of the episode rather than on admission as in MHE.
The full breakdown of the figures previously provided in another place on 10th February 1992 at col. 698 is given in the table.
The closest comparison with data for previous years is given at (2) in the table. However data are not directly comparable as they exclude those episodes which commenced during 1989–90, but were unfinished at 31st March 1990. These unfinished episodes would have been included in the MHE estimate.
Hospital episode statistics—completed episodes in the year 1989–90 with a diagnosis of Schizophrenia, England Total Previously admitted
(where known1)
(1) Primary diagnoses—admitted before 1-4-89 9,475 4,845 (2) Primary diagnoses—admitted during 1989–90 24,085 213,080 (3) Secondary diagnoses—admitted before 1-4-89 600 140 (4) Secondary diagnoses—admitted during 1989–90 4,020 485 Total 38,180 18,550 1Details provided for 60 per cent. of episodes only. 2By distributing the unknown values in direct proportion to the known, an estimate of 18,700 for re-admissions for 1989–90 is produced.