NHS: Private Patients

(asked on 8th September 2014) - View Source
Questioner
Portrait
Jamie Reed
(Labour - Copeland)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many privately-funded (a) knee replacement procedures, (b) hip replacement procedures and (c) cataract operations were conducted in NHS hospitals in England in each year since 2009-10.

Answered by
Portrait
Jane Ellison
This question was answered on 11th September 2014

In the following table, we have provided information concerning the number of finished consultant episodes (FCEs)1 with a main or secondary procedure2 of knee replacement, hip replacement and cataract surgery, where the patient is a private patient treated in a National Health Service hospital, for the period 2009-10 to 2012-133.

Knee Replacement

Hip Replacement

Cataract Surgery

2009-10

649

1,015

2,735

2010-11

558

967

2,852

2011-12

610

1,021

3,149

2012-13

565

934

3,172

Notes:

1A finished consultant episode (FCE) is a continuous period of admitted patient care under one consultant within one healthcare provider. FCEs are counted against the year in which they end. Figures do not represent the number of different patients, as a person may have more than one episode of care within the same stay in hospital or in different stays in the same year.

2The number of episodes where the procedure (or intervention) was recorded in any of the 24 (12 from 2002-03 to 2006-07 and 4 prior to 2002-03) procedure fields in a Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) record. A record is only included once in each count, even if the procedure is recorded in more than one procedure field of the record. Note that more procedures are carried out than episodes with a main or secondary procedure. For example, patients undergoing a ‘cataract operation’ would tend to have at least two procedures – removal of the faulty lens and the fitting of a new one – counted in a single episode.

3HES 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, changes in activity may be due to changes in the provision of care.

Source: Hospital Episode Statistics (HES), Health and Social Care Information Centre

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