Inpatient, Day Case and Outpatient Activity

Multiple and All Emergency Admissions  

A steady rise in the number of emergency inpatient admissions has been a major source of pressure for the NHS over the past twenty years. Analysis contained within these pages has been developed to try to gain a better understanding of the underlying trends in emergency admissions and in particular multiple emergency admissions.

For the purpose of the analyses presented here, an emergency admission is defined as being a new continuous spell of care in hospital where the patient was admitted as an emergency. If a patient has more than one unplanned continuous spell of treatment in hospital in one year, this is defined as a multiple emergency admission for that patient. For more detailed information on how emergency admissions, multiple emergency admissions and bed days are defined and calculated, please see Interpretation notes .

Information on the number of emergency admissions and the number of patients with 1, 2 or 3+ emergency admissions within 1 year are shown for financial years 1998/99 to 2007/08 inclusive.  Data on occupied bed days for emergency admissions is also available up to 2007/08.  The data can be displayed for NHS Boards, Local Authorities or Community Health Partnerships.  To allow easier comparison rates per 100,000 population are also provided.  For further information on the layout of the data please see Information Layout .

Of particular interest are emergency admissions for the elderly population, specifically those aged 65 years and over.  The Scottish Government has set a HEAT target relating to multiple emergency admissions and occupied bed days for this age group:

• By 2008-09, we will reduce the proportion of older people (aged 65+) who are admitted as an emergency inpatient 2 or more times in a single year by 20% compared with 2004/05 and reduce, by 10%, emergency inpatient bed days for people aged 65 and over by 2008

The Detailed Information section below contains information on patients aged 65 year and over relating to this HEAT target.

Key Points

• For patients aged 65 years and over who have had 2 or more emergency admission spells in hospital, the rate per 100,000 population has increased slightly from 4,806 in 2006/07 to 4,976 in 2007/08, a smaller increase than the previous year (4,520 in 2005/06).
• For patients aged 65 years and over admitted as an emergency, occupied bed days appear to have levelled off in recent years, up to 2007/08. This data is considered to be provisional and may be subject to slight changes in future releases.  For more information on data completeness please see here .
• The emergency admission rate per 100,000 population for patients aged under 25 years with 1 admission in a given year has increased steadily from 3,970 in 2002/03 to 4,210 in 2007/08.
• The rate per 100,000 population for children aged 0 to 4 years who have had 2 emergency admission spells in hospital has increased over the last 10 years from 925 in 1998/99 to 1,302 in 2007/08.

Detailed Information

Main contact: Secondary Care Team

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