Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many operations to treat respiratory disease the NHS has undertaken in each of the last 10 years.

The information is not available in the format requested.

Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) provide a count of the number of finished admission episodes (FAEs) with a primary diagnosis classified as diseases of the respiratory system where a main procedure was performed. This information for the period 2007-08 to 2016-17 is shown in the following table. This is a count of admissions, not patients, as the same patient may have been admitted on more than one occasion within the time period.

Count of FAEs¹ with a primary diagnosis classified as diseases of the respiratory system, where a main procedure was performed, 2007-08 to 2016-17².

Source:

HES, NHS Digital, Activity in English NHS Hospitals and English NHS commissioned activity in the independent sector

Notes:

¹A 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.

²It should be noted that, changes over time may be due to changes in coding practises and improvements over time.