Diseases: Diagnosis
(asked on 5th February 2016) - View Source
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many cases of (a) scurvy, (b) rickets, (c) cholera and (d) plague have been diagnosed in each year since 2010.
The Health and Social Care Information Centre has provided counts of finished admission episodes (FAEs)1 with a primary diagnosis2 of scurvy, rickets, cholera3, for 2010-11 to 2014-154.
These data are published in the diagnosis tables in the Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) Admitted Patient Care annual publications:
These data represent incidences of these diagnoses where there was a hospital admission. There may be more incidences where treatment was received in another health care setting. These figures should not be described as counts of people as the same person may have been discharged on more than one occasion in a year.
Between 2010 and 2015 there were 10 cases of plague (one case in 2014-15).
Notes:
1. A 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. The primary diagnosis is the first of up to 20 (14 from 2002-03 to 2006-07 and 7 prior to 2002-03) diagnosis fields in the HES data set and provides the main reason why the patient was admitted to hospital.
3. Clinical Codes. The following ICD-10 codes were used
Scurvy: E54.X - Ascorbic acid deficiency
Rickets: E55.0 - Rickets, active
Cholera: A00 - Cholera
4. 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 National Health Service 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. Note that HES include activity ending in the year in question and run from August to July, e.g. 2012-13 includes activity ending between 1 August 2012 and 31 July 2013.