Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what estimate his Department has made of the number of people who have an eating disorder in each of the last five years.

Data for the number of people diagnosed with an eating disorder are not collected.

Hospital Episodes Statistics (HES) data collected by the Health and Social Care Information Centre shows admitted patient activity for those being treated for an eating disorder.

We have provided a count of finished admission episodes (FAEs) with a primary diagnosis for eating disorders at England level from 2009-10 to 2013-14.

This data should not be described as a count of people as the same person may have been admitted on one or more occasion.

Table: Count of FAEs¹ with a primary diagnosis² of an eating disorder³ at England level from 2009-10 to 2013-14⁴

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

Activity in English NHS Hospitals and English NHS commissioned activity in the independent sector

Notes:

1. An FAE is the first period of admitted patient care under one consultant within one healthcare provider. FAEs are counted against the year or month in which the admission episode finishes. Admissions do not represent the number of patients, as a person may have more than one admission within the period.

2.The primary diagnosis is the first of up to 20 (14 from 2002-03 to 2006-07 and 7 prior to 2002-03) diagnosis fields in the HES data set and provides the main reason why the patient was admitted to hospital.

3. The codes used to classify the following eating disorders are:

Anorexia

F50.0 Anorexia nervosa

F50.1 Atypical anorexia nervosa

Bulimia

F50.2 Bulimia nervosa

F50.3 Atypical bulimia nervosa

Other Eating Disorders

F50.4 Overeating associated with other psychological disturbances

F50.5 Vomiting associated with other psychological disturbances

F50.8 Other eating disorders

F50.9 Eating disorder, unspecified

4. 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 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. Note that HES include 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.