Contents   Index

Notes for B14

Data are taken from the Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) system. This anonymised database contains detailed administrative and clinical information.

A finished consultant episode (FCE) is defined as a period of healthcare under one consultant in one hospital provider. If a patient is transferred to a different hospital provider or to a different consultant within the same hospital provider a new episode begins.

The figures do not reflect the number of individual patients treated, as one patient could have more than one episode of care within the data year.

The completeness of HES data has improved significantly since it was introduced in 1987-88.  However, due to continued variation in data quality across providers, there is still a need to compensate for known shortfall, i.e grossing.  Grossed figures provide better estimates and improve time series comparisons. The grossing methodology compensates for known shortfalls in the data, and is based largely on the KP70 counts of FCEs.

The national totals in table do not equate exactly to the figure in table B11, as the grossing factors used are based on KP70 data, but are not directly comparable with them.

The table is "grossed for coverage" meaning that figures have been adjusted to compensate for missing records.

A new computer system was introduced for the processing of 1994-95 HES data which adopted a revised grossing methodology and applied improved validation procedures.  For the sake of consistency back years have been re-processed on the new system thus introducing small revisions to previously published figures.

The figures for "Persons" include cases where sex is not known.

Data for 1996-97 and 1997-98 are provisional and largely ungrossed.

These figures fall outside the scope of National Statistics.

Contents   Index