Government of Jersey

Hospital admissions due to obesity (FOI)

Produced by the Freedom of Information office
Authored by Government of Jersey and published on 05 July 2024.
Prepared internally, no external costs.

Request

Over the past 10 years (from 2013 to 2023), please provide, broken down by year:

How many hospital admissions there were with obesity as the primary cause.

How many hospital admissions there were with obesity as the secondary cause.

Of these admissions, how many of these involved ambulance crews (either by arrival at hospital, or some other form of transportation)?

Of these admissions, how many were men or women?

Please also provide a breakdown by age group by year.

Response

The information requested has been provided through to the end of 2020 in a Freedom of Information response published to www.gov.je in June 2021:

Hospital admissions for obesity (FOI)

As this information is available elsewhere, Article 23 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 has been applied.

Information in respect of the period 2021 to 2023 is provided below. Data is derived from reporting by discharge date. As such, patients who were admitted prior to 1 January 2021 but discharged after this date will be included. For the same reason, patients admitted prior to 31 December 2023 but discharged after this date will not be included in the numbers.

Cases meeting the criteria for inclusion have been identified by the diagnosis codes assigned to the episode of care in the Electronic Patient Record. Clinical Coding of a patient’s admission is carried out after discharge from hospital. Data is not yet complete for all years, and consequently, figures may be subject to change as Clinical Coding of cases continues and completion levels increase.

Table 1 shows the number of admissions to Jersey General Hospital between 2021 and 2023 with a primary diagnosis of obesity recorded, by year of discharge. Primary diagnosis coding indicates the main condition treated or investigated throughout the episode of care. The table count represents the number of admissions, including Inpatients and Day Cases. A patient may have multiple admissions in a year.

On-island provision of bariatric surgery and care has resulted in increased annual admissions for obesity as a primary diagnosis / main condition treated from previous years, where such treatment would have been provided off-island.

Table 1: Annual admissions with a primary diagnosis of obesity

Discharge Year	Admission Count
2021	54
2022	37
2023	28

Data Source: Hospital Electronic Records - Clinical Coding Report (Maxims CC05DM)

Table 2 shows the number of admissions to Jersey General Hospital between 2021 and 2023 with a secondary diagnosis of obesity recorded, by year of discharge. The table count represents the number of admissions, including Inpatients and Day Cases.

Obesity is an essential co-morbidity, and will be coded on every admission where this is documented in line with National Clinical Coding Standards. For secondary diagnosis coding, this will not necessarily be an indicator of obesity being a reason for care, but instead captures the number of patients / admissions in which a person has been documented as obese or overweight. Where a person with a co-morbidity of obesity attends multiple times per week, for example renal dialysis or chemotherapy patients, each attendance is represented in the count.

Table 2: Annual admissions with a secondary diagnosis of obesity

Discharge Year	Admission Count
2021	2,392
2022	1,864
2023	976

Data Source: Hospital Electronic Records - Clinical Coding Reports (TrakCare CDG4G, Maxims CC05DM)

Information on Ambulance crew involvement in obesity-related admissions is not available to report from a central record. Whilst there may be documentation within individual medical records, manual examination of all admissions in scope of this request would exceed the timescales prescribed in the Freedom of Information (Costs) (Jersey) Regulations 2014. Therefore, Article 16 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 has been applied.

Table 3 shows the annual data for all admissions with a primary or secondary diagnosis of obesity, from 2021 to 2023, broken down by gender.

Table 3: Annual admissions with a primary or secondary diagnosis of obesity, by gender

Discharge Year
	2021	2022	2023
Female	1,578	1,272	665
Male	868	629	339

Data Source: Hospital Electronic Records - Clinical Coding Reports (TrakCare CDG4G, Maxims CC05DM)

Table 4 shows the annual data for all admissions with a primary or secondary diagnosis of obesity, from 2021 to 2023, broken down by age group.

Table 4: Annual admissions with a primary or secondary diagnosis of obesity, by age at admission

Discharge Year
Age Group	2021	2022	2023
0 – 19 years	10	13	12
20 – 24 years	9	24	12
25 – 29 years	29	20	12
30 – 34 years	26	27	14
35 – 39 years	196	217	32
40 – 44 years	121	56	41
45 – 49 years	380	429	245
50 – 54 years	155	83	118
55 – 59 years	261	103	79
60 – 64 years	272	115	104
65 – 69 years	482	357	93
70 – 74 years	264	246	83
75 – 79 years	169	147	103
80 – 84 years	47	51	36
85 years and older	25	13	20

Data Source: Hospital Electronic Records - Clinical Coding Report (Maxims CC05DM)

Articles applied

Article 16 - A scheduled public authority may refuse to supply information if cost excessive

(1) A scheduled public authority that has been requested to supply information may refuse to supply the information if it estimates that the cost of doing so would exceed an amount determined in the manner prescribed by Regulations.

Article 23 - Information accessible to applicant by other means

(1) Information is absolutely exempt information if it is reasonably available to the applicant, otherwise than under this Law, whether or not free of charge.

(2) A scheduled public authority that refuses an application for information on this ground must make reasonable efforts to inform the applicant where the applicant may obtain the information.