Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many patients in each age group were admitted to hospital with a diagnosis of malnutrition in each of the last five years.

NHS Digital has provided a count of finished admission episodes¹ (FAE) where primary diagnosis² was malnutrition³, by 10 year age bands for the years 2014-15 to 2017-18⁴. This information is provided in the following table.

Source: Hospital Episode Statistics (HES), NHS Digital

Notes:

¹FAE 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.

²The primary diagnosis is the first of up to 20 diagnosis fields in the HES data set and provides the main reason why the patient was admitted to hospital.

³ICD-10 codes used to define malnutrition are:

E40 Kwashiorkor

E41 Nutritional marasmus

E42 Marasmic kwashiorkor

E43 Unspecified severe protein-energy malnutrition

E44 Protein-energy malnutrition of moderate and mild degree

E45 Retarded development following protein-energy malnutrition

E46 Unspecified protein-energy malnutrition

O25 Malnutrition in pregnancy

⁴HES 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.