Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many (a) adults and (b) children were admitted to hospital as a result of asthma in (a) Yorkshire and the Humber and (b) England in each of the last five years.

The information requested is shown in the following tables.

A count of finished admission episodes for children and adults in the government office region of Yorkshire and the Humber with a primary diagnosis of asthma.

A count of finished admission episodes for children and adults in England with a primary diagnosis of asthma.

Source: Hospital Episode Statistics (HES), NHS Digital

Notes:

1. 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 inpatients, as a person may have more than one admission within the year.
2. The government office region of residence of the patient is derived from the patient's postcode in the field home address.
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 HES data set and provides the main reason why the patient was admitted to hospital.
4. Asthma clinical codes used: J45 and J46
5. 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 National Health Service 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 admitted patient HES data. Conversely, apparent increases in activity may be due to improved recording of diagnosis or procedure information.
6. It should be noted that HES include activity ending in the year in question and run from April to March, e.g. 2015-16 includes activity ending between 1 April 2015 and 31 March 2016.