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How many people are currently in hospital?

The number of hospital admissions is a key indicator for the pandemic. If the number of admissions is too high, the healthcare sector will be unable to cope. At worst that could mean patients wouldn’t be admitted to hospital because there wouldn’t be enough beds or qualified staff available. This article tells you more about the figures on the dashboard’s ‘Hospital admissions’ page.

Hospital staff in consultation with each other.

This article explains the figures on daily hospital admissions on the dashboard . See that page for current figures.

This page shows the average number of COVID-19 patients admitted to hospital over a period of seven days. This refers to patients admitted to a regular ward as well as patients admitted directly to the intensive care unit (ICU). The figures are based on the actual date of admission, not the date on which we received this information. The daily numbers can fluctuate and taken individually can give an inconsistent picture of the situation. We therefore use a seven-day rolling average because it gives a better overview of the general trend. Because it is an average, it isn’t always a whole number – we round to the nearest tenth.

There are often reporting delays of a few days for hospital admissions, so we don’t yet know today exactly how many people were admitted yesterday. Because data for the most recent days is incomplete, the seven-day rolling average is calculated using the figures from 4 to 10 days ago.

Graphs

The graph ‘Hospital admissions over time’ shows how the number of admissions has evolved since the start of the pandemic. You can select different periods. The graph always appears to show a downward trend for the last few days. That’s because these figures are still incomplete. There are often reporting delays because hospitals are very busy and reporting this data is a lot of work. The figures for the last four days are shown against a light grey background to indicate that they are still incomplete. It takes a few days for all admissions to be processed.

Hospital admissions over time

The graph of ‘Hospital admissions per age group over time’ shows the number of people per 1 million in each age group who have been admitted to hospital over time. Calculating these rates per 1 million allows us to compare age groups.

Hospital admissions per age group over time

The figures in the graph on ‘Hospital bed occupancy over time (non-ICU)’ are visible from 1 June 2020 onwards.

Hospital bed occupance over time