Increased health service use for asthma, but decreased for COPD: Northumbrian hospital episodes, 2013–2014

The burden of respiratory disease has persisted over the years, for both men and women. The aim of the present study was to investigate the hospital episode rates in respiratory disease and to understand whether and how the use of the health service for respiratory disease might have changed in recent years in the North-East of England. Hospital episode data covering two full calendar years (in 2013-2014) was extracted from the Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, which serves a population of nearly half a million. Hospital episode rates were calculated from admissions divided by annual and small area-specific population size by sex and across age groups, presented with per 100,000 person-years. The use of the health service for influenza and pneumonia, acute lower respiratory infections and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) increased with an advancing age, except for acute upper respiratory infections and asthma. Overall, the use of the health service for common respiratory diseases has seemed to be unchanged, except for asthma. There were large increases in young adults aged 20-50 for both men and women and the very old aged 90+ in women. Of note, there were large increases in acute lower respiratory infections for both men and women aged 90+, whereas there was also a large decrease in COPD in women aged 80-90. This is the first study to examine health service use for respiratory diseases by calculating the detailed population size as denominator. Re-diverting funding to improve population health on a yearly basis may serve the changing need in local areas.