Ian Lucas – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Ian Lucas on 2014-07-15.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what the average cost per night is of a bed in (a) an intensive therapy unit or high dependency unit, (b) a district general hospital, (c) a spinal cord injury centre and (d) a spinal cord injury centre for a ventilated spinal cord injured patient.

Jane Ellison

Information is not available in the format requested.

Such information as is available is from reference costs, which are the average unit costs to National Health Service trusts and foundation trusts of providing defined services in a given financial year to NHS patients. Unit costs for inpatient care, including spinal cord injury, requiring the use of a hospital bed for at least one night are submitted per finished consultant episode rather than per night. Only unit costs for inpatient stays beyond the expected length of stay for each treatment are submitted per bed day. Unit costs for critical care, including in an intensive therapy unit or high dependency unit, are submitted per critical care bed day. This information is shown in the following table.

National average unit costs of adult critical care, elective and non-elective care, and spinal cord injury care in England, 2012-13

	Unit cost per finished consultant episode4	Unit cost per excess bed day5	Unit cost per critical care bed day6
Adult critical care1	–	–	1,173
Inpatient care2	1,758	273	–
Spinal cord injury care3	7,649	354	–

Notes:

¹National average adult critical care costs submitted in reference costs by all NHS trusts and NHS foundation trusts that provided patient care in critical care units during 2012-13 give the nearest equivalent to the average cost per night of a bed in an intensive therapy unit or high dependency unit. They relate to parts of the patient’s hospital stay that require organ system support in a designated critical care bed. These are conventionally grouped into critical care areas, such as an intensive therapy unit or high dependency unit, but may include temporary, non-standard locations.

²National average elective and non-elective inpatient costs submitted in reference costs by all NHS trusts and NHS foundation trusts that admitted patients during 2012-13 give the nearest equivalent to the average cost per night of a bed in a district general hospital. No attempt has been made to distinguish between district general hospitals and other types of trust, such as specialist or teaching trusts.

³National average elective and non-elective inpatient costs submitted in reference costs against treatment function code 323, spinal injuries, by the following eight trusts providing spinal cord injury centres in England give the nearest equivalent to the average cost per night of a bed in a spinal cord injury centre:

(a) Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust

(b) Mid Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust

(c) Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust

(d) Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

(e) South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

(f) Southport and Ormskirk Hospital NHS Trust

(g) St George’s Healthcare NHS Trust

(h) The Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt Orthopaedic Hospital NHS Foundation Trust

⁴Reference costs for elective and non-elective inpatient episodes of care distinguish between the inlier unit cost below a statistically derived expected length of stay (known as a trim point) for a given treatment, and an excess bed day cost for each bed day over the trim point. Inlier unit costs cover the costs of active treatment and are submitted per finished consultant episode rather than per bed day.

⁵Excess bed day costs are used to estimate the cost of an overnight stay in a hospital bed and generally include routine ward costs such as nursing, dressings, and blood tests, although they may also include the costs of active treatment where this continues beyond the trim point, especially for specialised services.

⁶Adult critical care costs are submitted per critical care bed day.

Source: Reference costs, Department of Health