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Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease

Question for Department of Health and Social Care

UIN 44449, tabled on 7 April 2025

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many people under 50 have been diagnosed with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in the last 12 months.

Answered on

23 April 2025

Information is not held in the format requested. However, using Hospital Episode Statistics data, the following table shows a count of Finished Admission Episodes (FAEs) for patients under 50 years old with a primary diagnosis of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, for 2023/24 and provisionally for February 2024 to January 2025:

ICD-10 diagnosis code

Description

2023/24

2024/25

J41

Simple and mucopurulent chronic bronchitis

24

14

J42

Unspecified chronic bronchitis

186

183

J43

Emphysema

530

551

J44

Other chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

3,727

3,640

J47

Bronchiectasis

1,741

1,834

An FAE is the first period of admitted patient care under one consultant within one healthcare provider. FAEs are typically counted against the year or month in which the admission episode finishes, which is the approach we have used here. Admissions do not represent the number of patients, as a person may have more than one admission within the period.