New report shows number of hospital bed days taken up by flu sufferers

Provisional figures from The NHS Information Centre show the number of hospital bed days taken up by flu sufferers in 2009 was up 700 per cent on 2008.

Figures released today show that during 2009, 33,376 bed days were taken up by people with a primary diagnosis of influenza, compared to 4,163 bed days in 2008.

The increase was largest in the final quarter of 2009, with the number of bed days taken up by flu sufferers rising to 20,744 between October and December compared to 1,585 bed days between October and December 2008. This meant the number of bed days in the final quarter of 2009 was 13 times as high as in the same quarter in 2008.

The figures are part of a special topic from Provisional Monthly HES for Admitted Patient Care (www.ic.nhs.uk/pubs/provisionalmonthlyhes) which is now published monthly to provide up-to-date information and describe recent trends. 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.

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. Bed days - This is the sum of the episode duration for all finished consultant episodes that ended within the month. This field does not include bed days where the episode was unfinished at the end of the month.
  4. Influenza usually strikes between October and May however strains of influenza can occur outside the normal season, such as the recent ‘swine flu' variation. It is not possible to tell accurately how many of influenza related bed days were due to swine flu compared to other strains. This is because there are no codes in ICD-10 that exist to specifically identify swine flu.
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