This dataset presents the age-standardised rate of emergency hospital admissions for coronary heart disease (CHD) across England. It provides insight into the burden of acute cardiovascular events requiring urgent care, helping to inform public health strategies and healthcare planning. The indicator focuses on unplanned hospital admissions where CHD is the primary diagnosis, offering a measure of both disease prevalence and healthcare system responsiveness.
Rationale
Reducing emergency admissions for coronary heart disease is a key public health objective. High rates of emergency admissions may indicate poor disease management in the community or delayed access to preventative care. Monitoring this indicator supports efforts to improve cardiovascular health outcomes and reduce strain on emergency services.
Numerator
The numerator is the count of emergency hospital admissions where the primary diagnosis is coronary heart disease, identified using ICD-10 codes I20 to I25. Admissions are included if they meet specific criteria: admission method codes ('21', '22', '23', '24', '25', '28', '2A', '2B', '2C', '2D'), patient classification as 'ordinary' (1 or 2), episode status equal to 3, and episode order equal to 1. These values are derived from Secondary Uses Service (SUS) data.
Denominator
The denominator is the expected number of admissions, calculated by applying England's age-specific rates to the local registered population. Population estimates are based on Census 2021 data.
Caveats
There are known data quality issues affecting Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) data for Nottingham University Hospitals Trust during the 2016–2017 financial year. Over 30% of records lacked valid geographic information, and as a result, Public Health England (PHE) has not published a value for this trust. Additionally, due to disclosure control, some values have not been published.
External References
Fingertips Public Health Profiles – Coronary Heart Disease Indicator
Localities Explained
This dataset contains data based on either the resident locality or registered locality of the patient, a distinction is made between resident locality and registered locality populations:
- Resident Locality refers to individuals who live within the defined geographic boundaries of the locality. These boundaries are aligned with official administrative areas such as wards and Lower Layer Super Output Areas (LSOAs).
- Registered Locality refers to individuals who are registered with GP practices that are assigned to a locality based on the Primary Care Network (PCN) they belong to. These assignments are approximate—PCNs are mapped to a locality based on the location of most of their GP surgeries. As a result, locality-registered patients may live outside the locality, sometimes even in different towns or cities.
This distinction is important because some health indicators are only available at GP practice level, without information on where patients actually reside. In such cases, data is attributed to the locality based on GP registration, not residential address.
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