Epilepsy: secondary care data

Data on inpatient and daycase discharges are available from the SMR01 database. Chart 1 shows the incidence of epilepsy between 2008/09 and 2021/22. Incidence is defined here as the first hospital admission with epilepsy or death from epilepsy without a previous admission within the preceding 10 years. This is an imperfect measure as not everyone with epilepsy is admitted to hospital. 

Chart 1 shows that since 2008/09, males have consistently had higher incidence rates of epilepsy than females. The rate of new cases in females has increased slightly from 20.1 per 100,000 population in 2020/21 to 21.9 in 2021/22, whilst the rates for males has stabilised in the last two years at 29.5 in 2021/22. The downward trend in incidence for males aged 15 to 54 years continues, and is the only group that has not seen an increase in new cases between 2020/21 and 2021/22.