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Report reveals burden placed on hospital beds by smoking
August 17, 2012
Approximately one in every 20 hospital admissions is due to smoking, new figures show.
Smoking accounts for a significant proportion of hospital admissions in England, according to new figures published by the Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC).
One in every 20 admissions is due to smoking, according to the centre's latest statistical release, which suggests that an estimated 460,000 admissions in 2010-11 among people over the age of 35 were tobacco-related.
This is equivalent to 1,260 admissions per day that could have been avoided if people had not taken up smoking.
The HSCIC calculated that 126,000 admissions had a primary diagnosis of respiratory disease that was thought to have been due to smoking.
In addition, there were 135,400 admissions involving smoking-related circulatory disease and 160,300 due to smoking-related cancer.
This means that 11 percent of all cancer admissions, 15 percent of circulatory disease admissions and more than a quarter of respiratory disease admissions were linked to smoking.
Maureen Talbot, a spokeswoman for the British Heart Foundation, commented: "These depressing statistics show the price that the nation's health continues to pay for its nicotine addiction."
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