Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many hospital admissions there were with a primary diagnosis of heart disease in each of the last seven years.

The number of finished admission episodes¹ with a primary diagnosis², or combination of primary and where applicable their secondary diagnosis³, codes of heart disease between 2009-10 and 2015-16 is shown in the following table.

Source: Hospital Episode Statistics (HES)

1. A finished admission episode (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 seven prior to 2002-03) diagnosis fields in the HES data set and provides the main reason why the patient was admitted to hospital.
3. As well as the primary diagnosis, there are up to 19 (13 from 2002-03 to 2006-07 and six prior to 2002-03) secondary diagnosis fields in HES that show other diagnoses relevant to the episode of care. Please refer to the diagnosis codes sheet for the list of codes used and their combinations for this response.