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Alcoholic Drinks: Misuse

Answer

The information is shown in the following table. The proportion of hypertension caused by alcohol is an estimate. It should be noted that the figures include admissions where hypertension is a secondary diagnosis, as well as those where it is the primary diagnosis. A secondary diagnosis will not in all cases be a cause of admission.

Number of finished admissions of patients aged over 18 with a diagnosis of hypertension attributable to alcohol
	2004-05	2005-06	2006-07	2007-08	2008-09
Leicester	1,120	1,379	1,664	1,811	1,790
East Midlands	17,778	19,847	22,250	25,750	29,288
England	191,063	228,471	262,016	290,633	332,602
Notes:
1. Includes activity in English national health service hospitals and English NHS commissioned activity in the independent sector.
Finished admission episodes
2. A finished admission episode is the first period of in-patient care under one consultant within one health care provider. Finished admission episodes are counted against the year in which the admission episode finishes. It should be noted that admissions do not represent the number of in-patients, as a person may have more than one admission within the year.
Primary diagnosis
3. 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 Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) data set and provides the main reason why the patient was admitted to hospital.
Secondary diagnosis
4. As well as the primary diagnosis, there are up to 19 (13 from 2002-03 to 2007-08 and six prior to 2002-03) secondary diagnosis fields in HES that show other diagnoses relevant to the episode of care.
Data quality
5. HES are compiled from data sent by more than 300 NHS trusts and primary care trusts in England. Data is also received from a number of independent sector organisations for activity commissioned by the English NHS. The NHS Information Centre for health and social care liaises closely with these organisations to encourage submission of complete and valid data and seeks to minimise inaccuracies and the effect of missing and invalid data via HES processes. While this brings about improvement over time, some shortcomings remain.
Assessing growth through time
6. HES figures are available from 1989-90 onwards. The quality and coverage of the data have improved over time. These improvements in information submitted by the NHS have been particularly marked in the earlier years and need to be borne in mind when analysing time series. Some of the increase in figures for later years (particularly 2006-07 onwards) may be due to the improvement in the coverage of independent sector activity.
Changes in NHS practice also need to be borne in mind when analysing time series. For example, a number of procedures may now be undertaken in out-patient settings and may no longer be accounted for in the HES data. This may account for any reductions in activity over time.
Assignment of Episodes to Years
7. Years are assigned by the end of the first period of care in a patient's hospital stay.
Cause code:
8. The ICD-10 codes for hypertension are I10 to I15. From work carried out by the North West Public Health Observatory we are able to estimate what the proportion of hospital admissions are due to alcohol consumption, this is known as the alcohol attributable fraction (MF). Hypertensive diseases have an MF of 0.34 for males and 0.24 for females.
Source:
Hospital Episode Statistics (HES), The NHS Information Centre for health and social care

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

2562; 512 c61-3W

Session

2010-12

Subjects

Alcoholic drinks Misuse

Contains statistics

Yes

Link

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