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Self-harm

Answer

While figures are collected on the number of hospital admissions and the number of accident and emergency (A&E) attendances for self-harm, it is not be possible to determine the overall number of people that commit self-harm. Hospital figures would only reflect those cases that require hospital treatment and would not include those treated in a primary care setting or those who do not seek/require medical attention.The following tables show total finished in-patient admission episodes for males and females for each age under 25 and of A&E attendances for intentional self-harm for 2007-08 to 2009-10.The prevalence of self-harm is difficult to estimate. ““The Adult psychiatric morbidity in England (2007)”” survey holds information related to adult self-harm broken down by gender and age and reports that:"““There was no significant difference in the overall prevalence of self-harm between men and women. However, young women were more likely than young men to report having ever deliberately harmed themselves: 17.0% of women aged 16-24 reported this behaviour, compared with 7.9% of men in the same age group. This variation by sex was not evident in subsequent age groups. ""This corresponds with data from other sources about changes to the sex ratio in the occurrence of self-harm across the lifecycle.””"In November 2011, National Institution for Health and Clinical Excellence published guidelines on ““Self Harm (longer term management)””.

Total finished in-patient admission episodes¹ for intentional self-harm² by sex (including unknown) and age (under 25) for each year 2001-02 to 2010-11. Additionally, total A&E attendances for intentional self-harm³ by sex (including unknown) and age (under 25) for each year 2007-08 to 2009-10
Activity in English NHS Hospitals and English NHS commissioned activity in the independent sector
In-patients
Sex	Age	2010-11	2009-10	2008-09	2007-08	2006-07	2005-06	2004-05	2003-04	2002-03	2001-02
Total for ages 0-24 (inc. unknown)		37,932	34,351	33,852	33,843	31,206	30,769	26,142	24,687	21,906	22,555
Males	0	4	4	2	5	4	6	2	4	2	8
Males	1	11	7	14	12	20	19	18	12	21	15
Males	2	13	12	22	16	25	19	24	22	21	25
Males	3	10	7	7	21	11	11	11	5	11	11
Males	4	3	3	6	5	5	4	4	7	3	9
Males	5	6	3	1	2	5	3	4	7	2	6
Males	6	4	7	4	2	3	1	3	4	4	3
Males	7	4	12	8	1	1	3	2	6	3	5
Males	8	7	3	9	8	8	10	5	10	10	8
Males	9	6	13	8	9	11	15	7	23	9	15
Males	10	8	15	18	16	19	19	16	21	27	32
Males	11	25	35	26	27	38	44	49	58	54	52
Males	12	64	47	82	88	85	81	95	108	97	91
Males	13	100	131	142	145	140	155	174	201	156	181
Males	14	284	222	278	344	343	359	292	337	263	327
Males	15	567	503	532	560	606	533	435	499	469	441
Males	16	655	601	604	618	561	522	495	448	389	394
Males	17	831	822	773	756	660	718	587	500	442	506
Males	18	1,176	1,021	1,071	1,033	990	915	700	653	582	706
Males	19	1,336	1,253	1,206	1,179	1,046	929	826	721	633	813
Males	20	1,293	1,204	1,301	1,132	1,045	1,051	900	821	763	876
Males	21	1,389	1,398	1,228	1,002	1,057	1,033	913	798	762	876
Males	22	1,393	1,289	1,184	1,091	983	951	868	855	834	836
Males	23	1,339	1,063	1,154	1,093	1,002	944	898	909	704	763
Males	24	1,128	1,071	1,046	1,050	965	1,020	952	789	706	724
Females	0	3	3	5	3	8	3	5	4	10	7
Females	1	11	12	6	16	9	23	10	20	12	16
Females	2	14	17	18	8	23	17	11	21	18	19
Females	3	10	9	5	3	6	9	7	12	7	13
Females	4	4	2	3	5	3	5	3	3	6	7
Females	5	3	5	5	4	1		2	3	3	3
Females	6	3	3	3		1	4	4	3	3
Females	7	8	1	1	6	7	4	3	3	5	3
Females	8	3	4	2	4	7	6	4	9	4	7
Females	9	4	1	8	10	11	12	2	20	4	6
Females	10	7	15	14	13	12	11	19	18	13	15
Females	11	44	45	56	54	60	87	58	73	75	69
Females	12	265	220	237	337	286	308	293	318	306	248
Females	13	900	859	920	1,048	956	1,062	962	1,007	899	813
Females	14	2,172	1,917	1,998	2,069	2,079	2,227	1,973	1,980	1,890	1,678
Females	15	2,962	2,749	2,640	2,960	2,828	2,791	2,507	2,651	2,377	2,198
Females	16	2,500	2,319	2,254	2,427	2,130	2,060	1,780	1,570	1,442	1,457
Females	17	2,491	2,321	2,229	2,195	2,013	1,913	1,542	1,419	1,139	1,217
Females	18	2,512	2,323	2,229	2,236	1,990	1,894	1,545	1,286	1,120	1,278
Females	19	2,664	2,176	2,110	2,202	1,876	1,831	1,480	1,261	1,168	1,126
Females	20	2,389	2,093	2,012	1,938	1,687	1,584	1,342	1,176	978	1,150
Females	21	2,109	1,855	1,770	1,742	1,494	1,569	1,152	1,115	936	1,008
Females	22	1,986	1,606	1,637	1,546	1,535	1,425	1,121	1,029	907	965
Females	23	1,677	1,568	1,534	1,461	1,309	1,325	1,032	957	843	807
Females	24	1,533	1,481	1,428	1,338	1,214	1,226	969	894	771	721

Accident and emergency
Sex	Age	2009-10	2008-09	2007-08
Total for ages 0-24 (inc. unknown)		39,784	37,803	36,159
Males	0	34	42	38
Males	1	114	91	94
Males	2	108	111	93
Males	3	77	69	72
Males	4	56	58	39
Males	5	53	35	27
Males	6	23	35	27
Males	7	17	28	28
Males	8	20	22	20
Males	9	28	21	28
Males	10	32	41	33
Males	11	48	58	57
Males	12	103	125	130
Males	13	205	219	224
Males	14	386	379	388
Males	15	659	660	704
Males	16	850	935	884
Males	17	1,281	1,181	1,247
Males	18	1,690	1,693	1,502
Males	19	1,877	1,633	1,650
Males	20	1,836	1,767	1,584
Males	21	1,721	1,646	1,371
Males	22	1,569	1,410	1,319
Males	23	1,483	1,411	1,267
Males	24	1,419	1,266	1,274
Females	0	29	36	34
Females	1	98	92	96
Females	2	90	89	86
Females	3	50	51	61
Females	4	39	35	42
Females	5	20	24	28
Females	6	16	16	29
Females	7	13	21	25
Females	8	15	17	13
Females	9	15	13	26
Females	10	32	30	17
Females	11	47	46	41
Females	12	173	167	186
Females	13	566	548	617
Females	14	1,347	1,284	1,308
Females	15	1,849	1,760	1,695
Females	16	2,211	2,123	2,180
Females	17	2,484	2,427	2,294
Females	18	2,735	2,540	2,441
Females	19	2,498	2,375	2,332
Females	20	2,355	2,166	1,986
Females	21	2,020	2,008	1,812
Females	22	1,783	1,824	1,676
Females	23	1,719	1,640	1,559
Females	24	1,561	1,468	1,416
¹ Finished admission episodes
A finished admission episode (FAE) is the first period of inpatient care under one consultant within one healthcare provider. FAEs are counted against the year in which the admission episode finishes. Admissions do not represent the number of in-patients, as a person may have more than one admission within the year.
² Cause codes
A supplementary code that indicates the nature of any external cause of injury, poisoning or other adverse effects. Only the first external cause code which is coded within the episode is counted in Hospital Episode Statistics (HES). ICD10 Cause codes used for Intentional self-harm are X60-84 and Y87.0
³ A&E Patient Group
A code that indicates the reason for the A&E episode. Group 30 indicates those admitted for intentional self-harm
A&E Treatment
Treatment is any intervention that takes place during an A&E attendance. For the financial year 2007-08, providers had the option of using one of three different treatment classifications of codes; A&E treatment codes, OPCS-4 and READ-5. For more information on these, visit HESonline
www.hesonline.nhs.uk
From April 2008, all providers are mandated to use the A&E classification of treatment codes. Analysis of treatment based on A&E HES data are produced using A&E treatment codes unless stated otherwise. Providers are able to submit unlimited number of treatments for each attendance, however, only the first 12 treatment codes are available in HES. Analysis on treatment in A&E HES is based on the primary treatment code submitted, unless stated otherwise. The coverage and quality of treatment data available in 2007-08 A&E HES is poor and therefore great caution is needed before interpreting this in any way. Further information on the quality and coverage of treatment data are available in the 2007-08 A&E HES publication, which is available on HESonline
www.hesonline.nhs.uk
A&E data quality
HES are compiled from data sent by a number of NHS providers across England. The NHS Information centre for health and social care liaises closely with these organisations to encourage submission of complete and valid data and seek to minimise inaccuracies and the effect of missing and invalid data via HES processes. While this brings about improvement over time, some shortcomings remain. Accident and Emergency HES data available for the year 2007-08, which covers attendances reported between April 2007 and March 2008. The A&E HES data for 2007-08 is the first record level national A&E attendance data to be available within HES. The current coverage and quality of A&E data in HES is poor and for this reason the dataset has been labelled as 'experimental'. Allowing access to this data will also help stimulate discussion and encourage trusts to improve quality for subsequent releases. The 2007-08 A&E HES publication addresses some of the key data quality and coverage issues. This report is available on HESonline
www.hesonline.nhs.uk
Assessing growth through time
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 NHS 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.
Data quality
HES are compiled from data sent by more than 300 NHS trusts and primary care trusts (PCTs) in England and from some 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. While this brings about improvement over time, some shortcomings remain.
Source:
Hospital Episode Statistics (HES), The NHS Information Centre for health and social care.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

83426; 536 c780-6W

Session

2010-12

Subjects

Self-harm

Contains statistics

Yes

Link

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