Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 9 February 2022 to Question 118533, and with reference to the Answer of 6 February 2014 to Question 186278, if he will publish the count of finished admission episodes for NHS providers where the source of admission was a non-NHS run hospital for the years 2016-17 to 2021-22.

The following table shows a count of finished admission episodes (FAEs) to National Health Service hospitals, where the source of admission was from a non-NHS hospital provider, in each month between April 2016 to March 2021, the last month for which finalised data is available.

Source: Hospital Episode Statistics (HES), NHS Digital

Notes:

1. A FAE is the first period of admitted patient care under one consultant within one healthcare provider. FAEs are usually counted against the year or month in which the admission episode finishes. However, for the purposes of this analysis, we have recorded episodes by the month and year in which the admission started. This may lead to a shortfall in the most recent provisional months, as some patients admitted in these months, may still be in hospital at the time the data was collected and therefore not be included in the final figures. Admissions do not represent the number of patients, as a person may have more than one admission within the period.
2. 'NHS hospitals' was defined by 'Care trust', 'NHS foundation trust' and 'NHS trust'.
3. A code which identifies where the patient was immediately prior to admission. Most patients are admitted from home, but there are some significant exceptions. In particular, this field differentiates between patients admitted from home and patients transferred from another hospital provider or institution. For the purposes of this tabulation, records have been limited to those with an ADMISORC (Admission Source) of 87 - Non-NHS run hospital.
4. HES figures are available from 1989-90 onwards. Changes to the figures over time should 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. Conversely, apparent increases in activity may be due to improved recording of diagnosis or procedure information. It should be noted that HES include activity ending in the year in question and run from April to March, for example, 2012-13 includes activity ending between 1 April 2012 and 31 March 2013