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Cancer

Answer

The information requested is shown in the table.

Count of finished consultant episodes and patients for selected primary care trusts (PCTs) of residence where the primary diagnosis is cancer in national health service hospitals, England 2004–05
PCT of residence	Finished consultant episodes	Patient counts
Eastern Hull	3,151	1,600
West Hull	4,204	1,829
Notes: Finished consultant episode (FCE) A FCE is defined as a period of admitted patient care under one consultant within one health care provider. Please note that the figures do not represent the number of patients, as a person may have more than one episode of care within the year. Patient counts Patient counts are based on the unique patient identifier called the hospital episode statistics identifier (HESID). This identifier is derived based on patient's date of birth, postcode, sex, local patient identifier and NHS number, using an agreed algorithm. Where data is incomplete, HESID might erroneously link episodes or fail to recognise episodes for the same patient. Care is therefore needed, especially where duplicate records persist in the data. The patient count cannot be summed across a table where patients may have episodes in more than one cell. Diagnosis (primary diagnosis) The primary diagnosis is the first of up to 14 (seven prior to 2002–03) diagnosis fields in the HES data set and provides the main reason why the patient was in hospital. PCT and strategic health authority (SHA) data quality PCT and SHA data was added to historic data-years in the HES database using 2002–03 boundaries, as a one-off exercise in 2004. The quality of the data on PCT of treatment and SHA of treatment is poor in 1996–97, 1997–98 and 1998–99, with over a third of all finished episodes having missing values in these years. Data quality of PCT of general practice (GP) practice and SHA of GP practice in 1997–98 and 1998–99 is also poor, with a high proportion missing values where practices changed or ceased to exist. There is less change in completeness of the residence-based fields over time, where the majority of unknown values are due to missing postcodes on birth episodes. Users of time series analysis including these years need to be aware of these issues in their interpretation of the data. Ungrossed data Figures have not been adjusted for shortfalls in data that is the data is ungrossed. Source: Hospital Episode Statistics (HES), NHS Health and Social Care Information Centre.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

65464; 445 c1531-2W;445 c1531-2W

Session

2005-06

Subjects

Cancer Kingston upon Hull

Link

View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk