Northumbria VRU: Hospital admissions for violence - Summary Report, 2021/22

Introduction

In 2019, the Home Office announced that 18 police force areas (PFAs) would receive funding to establish (or build upon existing) Violence Reduction Units (VRUs) as part of the Serious Violence Fund. In 2022, a further 2 PFAs received funding to establish VRUs. The aim of VRUs is to lead and coordinate a preventative, whole-system approach to violence reduction, which comprises:

multi-agency working
data sharing and analysis
engaging young people and communities
commissioning (and delivering) evidence-based interventions

For further information see: Violence Reduction Units 2022 to 2023, Home Office 2023

This report was produced to provide an information summary of violence related emergency hospital admissions recorded in Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) for each VRU in England. The data are broken down by demography, main causes of admission and further subsets are provided for those violence admissions relating to alcohol, substance misuse and mental health. The charts show a summary for the VRU and for the local authorities within the VRU. If all indicator data are missing for a particular area, the chart for that area will not be displayed. To protect patient confidentiality, figures between 1 and 7 inclusive have been suppressed and replaced with “*” (an asterisk). For further technical information please see the metadata. This report is only a partial picture of admissions related to violence and does not include data from Accident & Emergency.

The report was produced by the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID), Local Knowledge & Intelligence Service. For any queries relating to this output please email lkissoutheast@dhsc.gov.uk including ‘VRU Violence Report’ in the subject line. An accompanying data set is available upon request.

Demographic Summary

The charts shown in each tab below indicate the proportion of emergency hospital admissions for violence (including sexual violence) broken down by sex, age group, England IMD Quintile and ethnicity during the period 2021/22 - 2023/24. Each tab shows a summary for the VRU and for the local authorities within the VRU.

All numbers have been rounded to the nearest 5 in keeping with NHSE’s disclosure guidance in order to protect confidentiality. As a result, totals may not add up and the percentages calculated are based on the rounded counts. In addition, counts between 1 and 7 inclusive have been suppressed.

Age Group

Temporal analysis

The following analysis provides admissions by month of attendance and arrival day of the week for violence related emergency hospital admissions (including sexual violence) during the period 2021/22 - 2023/24. The charts provide a summary for the VRU and for the local authorities within the VRU.

Length of stay

The following analysis provides a summary of the length of stay (days) for violence related emergency hospital admissions (including sexual violence) during the period 2021/22 - 2023/24. The charts provide a summary for the VRU and for the local authorities within the VRU.

Cause of admission

The following charts provide a breakdown of violence related emergency hospital admissions (including sexual violence) by top ten causes during the period 2021/22 - 2023/24. A number of causes may be recorded in a patient’s record, the “CAUSE” field extracts the first cause code in the episode and this field has been used to define the top 10 causes. Although all records have a violence cause code recorded somewhere in the episode, this is not necessarily the first cause code in the series and, consequently, there may be top causes represented that are not related to violence.

The charts provide a summary for the VRU and for the local authorities within the VRU. Some areas may not have as many as 10 different causes in the period shown. Causes with counts between 1 and 7 are not included in the charts.

Admissions related to alcohol

The following analysis provides a summary of violence related emergency hospital admissions (including sexual violence) that were related to alcohol during the period 2021/22 - 2023/24.

Admissions which are considered to be related to alcohol are defined as: admissions to hospital where the cause of the admission was violence (ICD10 codes X85-Y09 occurring in any diagnosis position, primary or secondary in the financial year in which the episode ended) but there is also an alcohol-specific (wholly attributable) ICD10 code in any diagnosis field. Alcohol-specific conditions are defined in the LAPE User Guide.

The charts provide a summary for the VRU and for the local authorities within the VRU.

Age Group

Admissions related to substance misuse

The following analysis provides a summary of violence related emergency hospital admissions (including sexual violence) that were related to substance misuse during the period 2021/22 - 2023/24.

Admissions which are considered to be related to substance misuse are defined as: admissions to hospital where the cause of the admission was violence (ICD10 codes X85-Y09 occurring in any diagnosis position, primary or secondary in the financial year in which the episode ended) but there is also a substance-misuse related ICD10 code in any diagnosis field. Substance-misuse ICD10 codes included are: F11-F19, T40, T52, T59, T436, Y12, Y16, Y19.

The charts provide a summary for the VRU and for the local authorities within the VRU.

Age Group

Admissions related to mental health

The following analysis provides a summary of violence related emergency hospital admissions (including sexual violence) that were related to mental health during the period 2021/22 - 2023/24.

Admissions which are considered to be related to mental health are defined as: admissions to hospital where the cause of the admission was violence (ICD10 codes X85-Y09 occurring in any diagnosis position, primary or secondary in the financial year in which the episode ended) but there is also a mental health related ICD10 code in any diagnosis field. Mental health ICD10 codes included are: F00-F99.

The charts provide a summary for the VRU and for the local authorities within the VRU.

Age Group

Metadata

Period covered: Data are for financial years 2021/22 - 2023/24.

Geography: Violence Reduction Units (VRUs) and their constituent local authorities (LAs). Admissions are based on LA of residence irrespective of where the injury occurred or where they were treated. For the purposes of these analyses, data for the 5 district councils within Oxfordshire County Council (Oxford City Council, Cherwell, South Oxfordshire, Vale of White Horse and West Oxfordshire) have been aggregated to reduce the outputs that require suppression.

Age: Persons, all ages

Episode type: All inpatient admissions (excluding regular day and night attenders).

Numerators:

Violence admissions (including sexual violence) are defined as: The number of first finished emergency inpatient admission episodes (episode number = 1, admission method starts with 2) where the cause of the admission was violence as classified by diagnosis code (ICD10 X85 to Y09 occurring in any diagnosis position, primary or secondary) in the financial years in which the episode ended. Regular and day attenders have been excluded. Admissions are only included if they have a valid local authority code. VRUs are the sum of the local authority counts from within each VRU.

Admissions by cause are defined by: A number of causes may be recorded in a patient’s record, the “CAUSE” field extracts the first cause code in the episode and this field has been used to define the top 10 causes for each area. Causes with counts below 8 have been removed from the list of top 10 causes. Top 10 totals are based on rounded counts. Although all records have a violence cause code recorded somewhere in the episode, this is not necessarily the first cause code in the series and, consequently, there may be top causes represented that are not related to violence.

Admissions which are also considered to be alcohol-related are defined as: Admissions to hospital where the cause of the admission was violence (ICD10 codes X85-Y09 occurring in any diagnosis position, primary or secondary in the financial year in which the episode ended) but there is also an alcohol-specific (wholly attributable) ICD10 code in any diagnosis field. Alcohol-specific conditions are defined in the LAPE User Guide.

Admissions which are also considered to be related to substance misuse are defined as: Admissions to hospital where the cause of the admission was violence (ICD10 codes X85-Y09 occurring in any diagnosis position, primary or secondary in the financial year in which the episode ended) but there is also a substance-misuse related ICD10 code in any diagnosis field. Substance-misuse ICD10 codes included are: F11-F19, T40, T52, T59, T436, Y12, Y16, Y19.

Admissions which are also considered to be related to mental health are defined as: Admissions to hospital where the cause of the admission was violence (ICD10 codes X85-Y09 occurring in any diagnosis position, primary or secondary in the financial year in which the episode ended) but there is also a mental health related ICD10 code in any diagnosis field. Mental health ICD10 codes included are: F00-F99.

Temporal analysis: Includes admission day of the week and admission month. Arrival hour is not included.

Data quality: Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) are compiled from data sent by more than 300 NHS trusts and Integrated Care Boards (ICB) in England. Data is also received from a number of independent sector organisations for activity commissioned by the English NHS. NHS England (NHSE) liaises closely with these organisations to encourage submission of complete and valid data and seeks to minimise inaccuracies and the effect of missing and invalid data via HES processes. While this brings about improvement over time, some shortcomings remain.

NHSE identified a data quality issue affecting Frimley Health Foundation Trust in 2022 to 2023. Frimley Health Foundation Trust did not submit HES data for June 2022 to March 2023. Data for VRUs using this trust should be treated with caution.

Small numbers disclosure: To protect patient confidentiality, figures between 1 and 7 inclusive have been suppressed and replaced with “*” (an asterix), all other numbers have been rounded to the nearest 5 in keeping with NHSE Disclosure control methodology for Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) and Emergency Care Data Set (ECDS). PLEASE NOTE THIS MEANS THAT TOTALS MAY NOT ADD UP DUE TO ROUNDING.

Records where sex or age is unknown or missing have been excluded from the analysis and are not included in totals.

Data Handling and use

Use: This material is Crown Copyright and all rights are reserved. © Crown Copyright 2025. Please inform if you intend to publish these data. If these data are used as part of a presentation, please acknowledge the ’Office of Health Improvement & Disparities, Local Knowledge & Intelligence Service” as the data provider.

Data handling: This data is provided to support the local operational delivery of Violence Reduction Unit activity aimed at reducing the incidence of violent injury. The data may only be shared with individuals working in local health and care systems who are engaged in VRU related activity.