Falls cause nearly 60 per cent of hospital admissions for fractures, provisional figures show

Nearly 60 per cent of all hospital admissions due to fractures in England are the result of a fall, according to provisional figures released by The NHS Information Centre today.

Provisionally between June 2009 and May 2010, falls accounted for 57 per cent (196,052) of instances where the main reason for admission was a fracture. Of those, over a third involved patients aged 80 or over and of those 79 per cent were female.

The same pattern is visible in the previous 12 month period.

Provisionally between June 2009 and May 2010 there were 343,536 admissions due to fractures, which accounted for 2.4 per cent of all admissions. This compares to 327,746 in the previous 12 month period, which accounted for 2.3 per cent of all admissions.

The report also shows that provisionally between June 2009 and May 2010, of all admissions due to fractures:

  • Around one in 12 (29,515) were due to transport accidents. Of those, 37 per cent (10,991) were for people aged between 17 and 39 and of those 76 per cent (8,370) were male.
  • Four per cent (14,179) were due to assaults. Of those, nearly three quarters (10,225) were for people aged between17 and 39 and of those 91 per cent were male.
  • The highest number of admissions for younger people aged 39 and under were between June and September, for people aged 40 and over the highest number were in December or January.
  • The most common form of fracture was of the femur, which accounted for nearly a quarter of fracture admissions.

The figures are part of a special topic from Provisional Monthly HES for Admitted Patient Care (www.ic.nhs.uk/pubs/provisionalmonthlyhes) which is published monthly to provide up-to-date information and describe recent trends. Further information on admissions due to fractures, including tables and charts, can be found within the report.

Information is provisional, has not been subject to final checks and revisions ahead of annual publication and can be subject to change. Previous provisional data has been slightly lower than the final data published in annual publications.

NHS Information Centre chief executive Tim Straughan said: “Falls are the cause of more than half of all hospital admissions for fractures and although provisional, this data will help the NHS understand the reasons for admissions due to fractures and plan the use of resources accordingly.

“These figures represent the most serious of fractures, as there will of course be a number of patients who attend accident and emergency but are not admitted to hospital.”

ENDS

Notes to editors

  1. The NHS Information Centre is England's authoritative, independent source of health and social care information. It works with more than 300 health and social care providers nationwide to provide the facts and figures that help the NHS and social services run effectively. Its role is to collect data, analyse it and convert it into useful information which helps providers improve their services and supports academics, researchers, regulators and policymakers in their work. The NHS Information Centre also produces a wide range of statistical publications each year across a number of areas including: primary care, health and lifestyles, screening, hospital care, population and geography, social care and workforce and pay statistics.
  2. HES provisional monthly data can be used for high level, aggregate analysis demonstrating approximate trends in activity. Lower level analysis should be approached with caution as not all activity will be correctly processed until the final annual data is produced.
  3. Month of activity: An admission episode, which is referred to in this press notice, either ends when a patient is discharged or transferred to the care of another consultant. Therefore a small number of admission episodes which occur at the month end may be counted in the following month's total admission episodes, as the discharge or transfer occurred in the following month.
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