Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate he has made of the number of children and young people requiring (a) admission and (b) re-admission to inpatient units for treatment of eating disorders in each year from 2017 to 2022.

The following table shows the number of finished admission episodes (FAE), re-admission episodes and number of admitted and re-admitted patients aged 0 to 17 years old with a primary diagnosis of eating disorders in each calendar year from 2017 to 2020. Data for 2021 is not yet available.

Source: Hospital Episode Statistics (HES), NHS Digital

1. A FAE is the first period of admitted patient care under one consultant within one healthcare provider. For the purposes of this analysis FAEs have been counted against the calendar year in which the admission episode commenced. Admission episodes do not represent the number of patients, as a person may have more than one admission within the period.
2. Re-admission episodes show where the same patient has been readmitted to hospital with a primary diagnosis of an eating disorder where there has been a previous admission with a primary diagnosis of an eating disorder since April 2012. The same patient may have had more than one re-admission during a period.
3. Number of re-admitted patients is a count of the number of distinct patients re-admitted each year. It is possible that the same person will be re-admitted in more than one year.
4. 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. For the purpose of this response the following ICD-10 code has been used: F50 - Eating Disorders