To ask the Minister of Health to detail (i) the number of hospital admissions for hypothermia of people 65 years of age and over in the last three months; and (ii) how this compares to the same period last year.

Admissions1 to Health and Social Care Trust (HSCT) hospitals, aged 65 and over with a hypothermia diagnosis2

Source: Hospital Inpatient System and encompass, Hospital Activity Information Branch, Information & Analysis Directorate, Department of Health, NI.

Notes:

1Admissions are approximated using deaths and discharges during the period. Admissions within the Mental Health and Learning Disability Programmes of Care have not been included.

PData for Oct - Dec 2024 are provisional only. Episodic coding works against the NI Coding Target of 3 months so it is likely that there is activity in this period which has yet to be coded and may fit the criteria requested.

2Hospital admissions with hypothermia were identified using the following ICD-10 codes in any of the diagnoses fields of the Hospital Inpatient System and encompass:

T68.X - Hypothermia

R68.0 - Hypothermia, not associated with low environmental temperature

*Both periods include data extracted from encompass (a new electronic patient record system) for South Eastern Health and Social Care Trust from 9 November 2023 and Belfast Health and Social Care Trust from 6 June 2024.

This subset of the data is classed as "Official Statistics in Development" whilst undergoing evaluation.

As a result, users should exercise some caution with this data.