§ Ms HarmanTo ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will list the number of(a) surgical, (b) adult medical, (c) paediatric, (d) intensive treatment unit—ITU, (e) accident and emergency and (f) other emergency admissions in each year since 1989–90. [12626]
§ Mr. Horam[holding answer 30 January 1996]: The information that is available centrally from the "Hospital Episode Statistics" is shown in the table.
Published data on emergency admissions have traditionally included, not only the first episode of care, but subsequent episodes of care for each patient within a patient spell.
A more appropriate system has been developed which counts first episodes of care only. The information from this source is set out in the table. Information in this form is currently available only for the years 1993–94, 1991–92 and 1990–91. Data for 1989–90 and 1992–93 will be available in due course.
Emergency admissions—NHS hospitals, England, by specialty 1990–91 1991–92 1993–94 Acute surgical 1,194,296 1,182,136 1,241,728 Adult1 acute non-surgical (adult medical) 1,039,133 1,047,224 1,206,630 Paediatric 365,844 386,301 405,797 ITU2 n/a n/a n/a A and E3 (71,879) (71,558) (73,642) Other emergency admissions 500,461 503,965 557,491 1 Adult is defined as aged 15 years and over; adult acute non-surgical excludes those of 15's who are included in the paediatric specialty. 2 ITU is not a recognised specialty in hospital episode statistics. 3 Included in acute surgical.