Highlights
- •Since 2011 the UK has experienced a period of unexplained higher medical admissions and deaths.
- •Population-adjusted admissions by age band show inexplicable age-specific changes.
- •Statistically significant changes in deaths are associated with the patients' year of birth.
- •Possible explanations for these age and year of birth specific changes are discussed.
Abstract
Background
Policy makers have assumed that increase in medical demands and costs are attributable
to the increasing age of the population and the inability of health and social care
to limit demand.
Methods
Analysis of data obtained from NHS and Office of National Statistics.
Results
Population-adjusted age-specific patterns in medical admissions and deaths have increased
over the period 2012/13 to 2015/16 in the NHS in England. The growth is both age and
year of birth specific, and the youngest appear to be worst affected. Overall there
has been a growth of 30,870 admissions (15% increase) in 25–29 year olds compared to 119,280 extra admissions (7% increase) for 70–74 year olds. Admissions of younger medical patients have also increased more so than
for pneumonia, and the increase in all-cause mortality appears to be influenced by
the patients' year of birth.
Conclusion
In England, medical admissions and deaths (all-cause mortality) have recently displayed
very high unexplained growth. The fact that these are associated with patient year
of birth suggests that the cause(s) may be related to infectious or other environmental
factors encountered earlier in life.
Keywords
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: October 04, 2017
Accepted:
September 29,
2017
Received in revised form:
September 27,
2017
Received:
August 9,
2017
Identification
Copyright
© 2017 European Federation of Internal Medicine. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
