Notes:
1. Finished admission episodes: A finished admission episode is the first period of inpatient care under one consultant within one healthcare provider. Finished admission episodes are counted against the year in which the admission episode finishes. Admissions do not represent the number of inpatients, as a person may have more than one admission within the year.
2. Diagnosis (Primary Diagnosis): The primary diagnosis is the first of up to 14 (seven prior to 2002-03) diagnosis fields in the Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) dataset and provides the main reason why the patient was in hospital.
3. Ungrossed data: Figures have not been adjusted for shortfalls in the data, i.e. the data are ungrossed.
4. Data Quality: HES are compiled from data sent by over 300 NHS trusts and primary care trusts (PCTs) in England. The 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.
5. Assessing growth through time: HES figures are available from 1989-90 onwards. During the years that these records have been collected the national health service there have been ongoing improvements in quality and coverage. 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. Source:
Hospital Episode Statistics (HES), The Information Centre for health and social care
