Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many deaths and injuries have been caused by prohibited animals which are (a) not on and (b) on the Index of Exempted Dogs in each of the last five years.

There are no records held on the numbers of deaths or injuries caused by dogs held on the Index of Exempted Dogs. However, annual statistics for the last full five years, published by the Health & Social Care Information Centre, on Counts of Finished Admission Episodes for dog bites and strikes is contained in the attached table (the figures should be read in conjunction with the footnotes to the table).

In addition, the number of people killed by dogs each year for the last full five years is as follows:

Counts of Finished Admission Episodes (FAEs)¹ for dog bites and strikes², 2009-10 to 2013-14³

Activity in English NHS Hospitals and English NHS commissioned activity in the independent sector

Source: Hospital Episode Statistics (HES), Health and Social Care Information Centre

1. Finished admission episodes A finished admission episode (FAE) is the first period of admitted patient care under one consultant within one healthcare provider. FAEs are counted against the year or month in which the admission episode finishes. Admissions do not represent the number of patients, as a person may have more than one admission within the period.

2. External cause codes

A supplementary code that indicates the nature of any external cause of injury, poisoning or other adverse effects. Only the first external cause code which is coded within the episode is counted in HES.

ICD-10 code used: W54 - Bitten or struck by dog

3. Assessing growth through time (Admitted patient care)

HES figures are available from 1989-90 onwards. Changes to the figures over time need to be interpreted in the context of improvements in data quality and coverage (particularly in earlier years), improvements in coverage of independent sector activity (particularly from 2006-07) and changes in NHS practice. For example, apparent reductions in activity may be due to a number of procedures which may now be undertaken in outpatient settings and so no longer include in admitted patient HES data. Conversely, apparent increases in activity may be due to improved recording of diagnosis or procedure information.

Note that Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) include activity ending in the year in question and run from April to March, e.g. 2012-13 includes activity ending between 1st April 2012 and 31st March 2013.