This dataset presents the age-standardised rate of emergency hospital admissions for intentional self-harm among children and young people aged 10 to 24. It highlights the scale of serious mental health challenges faced by young people and provides a critical measure for monitoring trends in self-harm requiring inpatient care.
Rationale
Reducing emergency admissions for self-harm in children and young people is a key public health goal. High admission rates may indicate unmet mental health needs, social pressures, or gaps in early intervention services. This indicator supports the development of targeted mental health strategies and resource allocation to improve outcomes for vulnerable youth.
Numerator
The numerator is the number of finished admission episodes for individuals aged 10 to 24 where the main recorded cause is intentional self-harm, identified using ICD-10 codes X60 to X84. These codes represent external causes of injury and poisoning. Data are sourced from the Secondary Uses Service (SUS) Inpatients Report.
Denominator
The denominator is the estimated resident population aged 10 to 24 years, based on mid-year population estimates by single year of age and sex for local authorities in England and Wales. These estimates are provided by the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
Caveats
This dataset reflects episodes of admission rather than individual patients, meaning multiple admissions by the same person are counted separately. It does not include attendances at Accident & Emergency (A&E) departments that do not result in admission. Local variations in referral and admission practices may also influence the data.
External References
Fingertips Public Health Profiles – Self-Harm Admissions (10–24 years)
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.
Click here to explore more from the Birmingham and Solihull Integrated Care Partnerships Outcome Framework.