Radiotherapy: Easington

(asked on 14th January 2015) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many patients in Easington constituency have received treatment using advanced stereotactic radiotherapy in each year since 2010.


Answered by
 Portrait
Jane Ellison
This question was answered on 21st January 2015

The information requested is shown in the following table.

Finished Consultant Episodes (FCE)1 with a Main or Secondary Operative Procedure2 of stereotactic radiosurgery on the tissue of the brain, where the clinical commissioning group (CCG) of residence is Durham Dales, Easington and Sedgefield3 for each of the last three years (2010-11 to 2012-13)4

Year

Count of FCEs

2010-11

9

2011-12

*

2012-13

8

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

1 Finished Consultant Episode

A FCE is a continuous period of admitted patient care under one consultant within one healthcare provider. FCEs are counted against the year in which they end. Figures do not represent the number of different patients, as a person may have more than one episode of care within the same stay in hospital or in different stays in the same year.

2 Number of episodes with a main or secondary procedure

The number of episodes where the procedure (or intervention) was recorded in any of the 24 procedure fields in a Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) record. A record is only included once in each count, even if the procedure is recorded in more than one procedure field of the record. Note that more procedures are carried out than episodes with a main or secondary procedure. For example, patients undergoing a ‘cataract operation’ would tend to have at least two procedures – removal of the faulty lens and the fitting of a new one – counted in a single episode.

OPCS code used: A10.7 Stereotactic radiosurgery on tissue of the brain.

3 CCG of residence

The CCG containing the patient’s normal home address. This does not necessarily reflect where the patient was treated as they may have travelled to another area for treatment.

4 Assessing growth through time (Inpatients)

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 and changes in NHS practice. For example, changes in activity may be due to changes in the provision of care.

Small numbers

To protect patient confidentiality, figures between 1 and 5 have been replaced with “*” (an asterisk). Where it was still possible to identify figures from the total, additional figures have been replaced with "*". Where the symbol "-" (dash) appears this represents the absence of data.

It should be noted that HES disclosure control rules only apply to 'known' values, e.g. small numbers where the age is unknown do not need to be replaced with "*".

Reticulating Splines