Public Health England report on death in hospitals

Public Health England recently released a report on deaths of older people in hospital during 2017

This report looks at deaths in hospital for people aged
75 years and older in 2017. Differences by age, sex deprivation are explored.
In addition, the length of admissions ending in hospital death is examined.

Main findings

45.6% of people aged 75 years and older died in hospital.
This varied by demographic and cause of death as described below:

Age and sex

• a higher number of deaths occurred in hospital with increasing age, but the proportion of all deaths occurring in hospital decreased with increasing age
• a higher proportion of men than women died during an admission that lasted 8 days or longer, across all age groups
• males had a higher proportion of people with an admission ending in death that lasted 8 days or longer than women, across all age groups

Deprivation

• 50.3% of people from the most deprived areas died in hospital, compared with 43.9% of people from the least deprived.

Cause of death

• the most common underlying cause of death for people aged 75 years and older who died in hospital in 2017 was cancer, followed by heart disease and pneumonia.
• for most people aged 75 years and older who died in hospital, their underlying cause of death was not the same as the primary diagnosis at the point of admission to hospital in the hospital in which they died
• pneumonia and infections were recorded as the primary reason for admission in a large proportion of hospital admissions that ended in death (18.2% and 12.9% respectively)

Length of hospital admissions that ended in death

• 51.5% of people aged 75 years and
  older died in hospital during an admission lasting 8 days or longer

The report may be read here.