Malnutrition

Department of Health and Social Care written question – answered at on 19 July 2018.

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Photo of Stephen Timms Stephen Timms Labour, East Ham

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many cases of malnutrition there have been in each year since 2010.

Photo of Steve Brine Steve Brine The Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Health and Social Care

NHS Digital has provided a count of finished admission episodes1 with a primary or secondary diagnosis2 of malnutrition3 for the years 2010-11 to 2016-174. This information is provided in the following table.

Activity in English National Health Service hospitals and English NHS commissioned activity in the independent sector

Year

Malnutrition

2010-11

4,657

2011-12

5,377

2012-13

5,499

2013-14

6,653

2014-15

7,348

2015-16

7,855

2016-17

8,417

Source: Hospital Episode Statistics (HES), NHS Digital

Notes:

  1. A finished admission episode (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.
  1. The number of episodes where this diagnosis was recorded in any of the 20 primary and secondary diagnosis fields in a HES record. Each episode is only counted once, even if the diagnosis is recorded in more than one diagnosis field of the record.
  1. ICD-10 coding

Malnutrition:

E40 Kwashiorkor

E41 Nutritional marasmus

E42 Marasmic kwashiorkor

E43 Unspecified severe protein-energy malnutrition

E44 Protein-energy malnutrition of moderate and mild degree

E45 Retarded development following protein-energy malnutrition

E46 Unspecified protein-energy malnutrition

O25 Malnutrition in pregnancy

The presence of an ICD-10 code of malnutrition on the admission episode indicates that the patient was diagnosed with, and would therefore being treated for malnutrition during the episode of care. The cause of malnutrition is not presented here but may be due to dietary issues, an inability to absorb nutrients normally or another disease affecting the patient’s ability to feed normally.

  1. 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.

It should be noted 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.

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