Arora, S;
Cheung, CR;
Sherlaw-Johnson, C;
Hargreaves, DS;
(2018)
Use of age-specific hospital catchment populations to investigate geographical variation in inpatient admissions for children and young people in England: retrospective, cross-sectional study.
BMJ Open
, 8
(7)
, Article e022339. 10.1136/bmjopen-2018-022339.
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Abstract
OBJECTIVES: To develop a method for calculating age-specific hospital catchment populations (HCPs) for children and young people (CYP) in England. To show how these methods allow geographical variation in hospital activity to be investigated and addressed more effectively. DESIGN: Retrospective, secondary analysis of existing national datasets. SETTING: Inpatient care of CYP (0-18 years) in England. PARTICIPANTS: Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) data were accessed for all inpatient admissions (elective and emergency) for CYP from birth to 18 years, 364 days, for 2011/2012-2014/2015. In 2014/2015, 857 112 admissions were analysed, from an eligible population of approximately 11.9 million CYP. OUTCOME MEASURES: For each hospital Trust, the catchment population of CYP was calculated; Trust-level admission rates per thousand per year were then calculated for admissions due to (1) any diagnostic code, (2) primary diagnosis of epilepsy and (3) epilepsy listed as primary diagnosis or comorbidity. RESULTS: Estimated 2014/2015 HCPs for CYP ranged from 268 558 for Barts Health NHS Trust to around 30 000 for the smallest acute general paediatric services and below 10 000 for many Trusts providing specialist services. As expected, the composition of HCPs was fairly consistent for age breakdown but levels of deprivation varied widely. After standardising for population characteristics, admission rates with a primary diagnosis of epilepsy ranged from 14.3 to 157.7 per 100 000 per year (11.0-fold variation) for Trusts providing acute general paediatric services. All-cause admission rates showed less variation, ranging from 4033 to 11 681 per 100 000 per year (2.9-fold variation). CONCLUSIONS: Use of age-specific catchment populations allows variation in hospital activity to be linked to specific teams and care pathways. This provides an evidence base for initiatives to tackle unwarranted variation in healthcare activity and health outcomes.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Use of age-specific hospital catchment populations to investigate geographical variation in inpatient admissions for children and young people in England: retrospective, cross-sectional study |
| Location: | England |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1136/bmjopen-2018-022339 |
| Publisher version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2018-022339 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright © Article author(s) (or their employer(s) unless otherwise stated in the text of the article) 2018. All rights reserved. No commercial use is permitted unless otherwise expressly granted. This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/. |
| Keywords: | children and young people, health services research, hospital catchment population, paediatrics, variation |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences > UCL GOS Institute of Child Health UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences > UCL GOS Institute of Child Health > Population, Policy and Practice Dept |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10053336 |
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