§ Mr. RuffleyTo ask the Secretary of State for Health how many operations were carried out by the West Suffolk NHS Hospitals Trust in each year since 1997. [187195]
§ Dr. LadymanThe information is not held in the format requested. However, the number of finished consultant episodes (FCEs) for each year since 1997 for West Suffolk Hospitals National Health Service Trust is shown in the table.
FCEs, 1996–97 to 2002–03—all operation count of FCEs (four character OPCS4 codes A01.0–X59.9), provider code = RGR (West Suffolk NHS Hospitals Trust), NHS hospitals, England FCEs 1996–97 22,282 1997–98 24,286 1998–99 27,336 1999–2000 28,068 2000–01 29,095 2001–02 29,085 2002–03 30.878 Notes: 1. A FCE is defined as a period of admitted patient care under one consultant within one healthcare provider. Please note that the figures do not represent the number of patients, as a person may have more than one episode of care within the year. 2. All operations count of episodes: these figures represent a count of all FCE's where the procedure was mentioned in any of the 12 (four prior to 2002–03) operation fields in a HES record. A record is only included once in each count, even if an operation is mentioned in more than one operation field of the record. 3. Figures have not been adjusted for shortfalls in data (i.e. the data are ungrossed). Source: Hospital episode statistics, Department of Health.