Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many people have been diagnosed with leg ulcers in the UK in each of the last five years.
Data is not held centrally for individuals that have been diagnosed with leg ulcers in the United Kingdom.
Data is available on the count of finished admission episodes (FAEs) with a primary diagnosis of ulcers of the lower limb and lower extremities, for patients in England.
Year | FAEs |
2012-13 | 15,130 |
2013-14 | 17,156 |
2014-15 | 17,667 |
2015-16 | 19,737 |
2016-17 | 19,484 |
Activity in English National Health Service Hospitals and English NHS commissioned activity in the independent sector
Source: Hospital Episode Statistics (HES), NHS Digital
Notes:
1. FAE
An 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. Primary diagnosis
The primary diagnosis is the first of up to 20 (14 from 2002-03 to 2006-07 and seven prior to 2002-03) diagnosis fields in the HES data set and provides the main reason why the patient was admitted to hospital.
3. ICD10 Codes
The following ICD10 codes were used to identify ulcers of the lower limb and lower extremities:
L97.X Ulcer of lower limb, not elsewhere classified
I83.0 Varicose veins of lower extremities with ulcer
I83.2 Varicose veins of lower extremities with both ulcer and inflammation
4. 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.
It should be noted that HES include activity ending in the year in question and run from April to March, e.g. 2015-16 includes activity ending between 1 April 2015 and 31 March 2016.