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Table 4 Healthcare utilisation in secondary care for asthma across all ages in 2011–12 by UK nation

From: The epidemiology, healthcare and societal burden and costs of asthma in the UK and its member nations: analyses of standalone and linked national databases

Healthcare utilisation measure in secondary care

England

Scotland

Wales

Northern Ireland

UK estimate7

n

ASRa

n

ASRa

n

ASRa

n

ASRa

n (000 s)

N

(95 % CI)

N

(95 % CI)

N

(95 % CI)

N

(95 % CI)

(95 % CI)

Ambulance conveyance1

  

8263

1.6

    

112.9

  

5,299,900

(1.6–1.7)

    

(107.6–131.8)

Accident and emergency (A & E) attendances in hospital2,b

  

8457

1.7

2321

0.7

  

121.1

  

4,868,230

(1.6–1.7)

3,033,591

(0.7–0.8)

  

(108–146)

Inpatient episodes of hospital care (for asthma as the primary reason for care)3,c

76,319

1.4

7744

1.5

7887

2.6

1966

1.1

93,916

53,107,200

(1.4–1.4)

5,299,900

(1.4–1.5)

3,033,591

(2.5–2.7)

1,814,318

(1.0–1.1)

(93,916–93,916)

Day-case episodes of hospital care (for asthma as the primary reason)3,c

5066

9.4

142

2.7

768

25.7

144

7.0

6120

53,107,200

(9.1–9.7)

5,299,900

(2.2–3.1)

3,033,591

23.9–27.6

1,814,318

5.88–8.20

(5929–6248)

Intensive care unit episodes for asthma as the primary reason for care4,5,6,d

1537

2.8

179

3.3

97

3.0

55

3.0

1868

53,107,200

(2.7–3.0)

5,299,900

(2.8–3.8)

11,931,062

(2.4–3.6)

1,704,245

(2.2–3.8)

(1739–1932)

  1. Source: 1Scottish Ambulance Service (SAS); 2A&E data mart in Scotland (excluding Orkney and Tayside Health Boards) and SAIL-Emergency Department Dataset for Wales; 3Hospital Episode Statistics-England, General/Acute Inpatient and Day-Case-Scotland, SAIL-Patient Episode Database-Wales and Department of Health, Social Service and Public Safety in Northern Ireland; 4For children, Paediatric Intensive Care Audit Network (PICANet); 5For adults, Intensive Care National Audit & Research Centre (ICNARC)-England, Northern Ireland and Wales and 6Scottish Intensive Care Society Audit (SICSAG)-Scotland; 7From cost modelling
  2. aAge standardised rate (ASR), using the 2013 European Standard Population; per 1000 population of the country for ambulance, accident and emergency (A&E) and inpatients, and per 100,000 population for day-cases and intensive care
  3. bIncludes ‘New’ and ‘Unplanned Return’ attendances only at A&E, excludes those who are ‘Recall’ or ‘Planned Return’. For Scotland based on A&E sites which returned episode-level information for at least one of the following: ICD10 Diagnosis code (R098/R068/R062/R060/R05X/R05/J46X/J46/J459/J458/J451/J450/J45/R688/R69X/R69/Z825/J21/J210/J211/J218/J219/R06/R09/R092) OR Diagnosis free-text extracted from “Wheez”/“Asthma”/“Ashtma”/“low” AND “sats”(“chest” AND “tight”) AND (“SOB” OR (“short” AND “breath”)). However, most Health Boards use a pick list/disease code from ICD-10 codes, these are usually mapped from diagnosis text where a pick list has been used. NHS Tayside and NHS Orkney only submit high-level diagnosis codes (comprises about 6 % of total attendance), thus have been excluded here. Thus, figures presented here will be an underestimate of the true number of attendances to A&E for Scotland
  4. cICD-10 codes J45/J46 as primary reason for care. For Wales, the first non-R or Z code in day-cases were also used additionally. R codes refer to “symptoms” and Z codes to “factors influencing health status and contact with health services”
  5. dAsthma as primary reason for care with Read codes in PICANet, ICD-10 codes J45/J46 in ICNARC and APACHE III diagnostic codes in SICSAG
  6. Blank cells had no data availability