Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many finished hospital episodes with a primary diagnosis of epilepsy there were among people aged (a) under and (b) over 18 in England in each of the last five years.

In the following table, we have provided the number of finished consultant episodes (FCEs) with a primary diagnosis of epilepsy for people aged under 18 and over 18 in England for each of the last five years. The column headed ‘unknown’ contains FCEs where no age was provided.

Notes:

1. A 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.

2. Hospital Episodes Statistics (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 in admitted patient HES data. Conversely, apparent increases in activity may be due to improved recording of diagnosis or procedure information. HES figures includes activity ending in the year in question and run from April to March, e.g. 2012-13 includes activity ending between 1 April 2012 and 31 March 2013.

Source: HES, Health and Social Care Information Centre.