A comparative analysis of routine hospital admission data for sickle cell anaemia, cystic fibrosis and haemophilia in England
File(s)
Article in press
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Recent evidence of inequalities in healthcare for sickle cell disease in the UK is lacking. We aimed to describe trends in hospital admissions for sickle cell anaemia (SCA), cystic fibrosis (CF) and haemophilia in England. We conducted a historical cohort study using Hospital Episode Statistics data of individuals with a primary diagnosis of SCA (n=19,506), CF (n=9,569) or haemophilia (n=7,289) between 1st January 2013 and 31st December 2022. We compared the number and proportion of hospital admissions, 30-day emergency readmissions, length of stay (LoS) and costs of hospitalisations over time for the three conditions considered. People with SCA had more frequent elective admissions ≥5 ranging from 43.4%-52.1% compared with 14.3%-22.3% for CF and 10.4%-14.5% for haemophilia over time. The proportion of 30-day emergency readmissions was higher for SCA (9.0%) and CF (7.5%) compared with haemophilia (3.2%). Overall mean LoS (days) was longer for people with CF admitted for sepsis (24.3 vs 16.7 in SCA, 20.8 in haemophilia) and acute appendicitis (6.1 vs 5.9 for SCA, 5.4 for haemophilia). Estimated hospitalisation costs were higher for SCA (£109.9M) compared with CF (£44.2M) and haemophilia (£14.4M) in 2021/22. We found substantial inequalities in all the indicators considered for SCA, CF and haemophilia. Our findings can inform public health policies to reduce preventable emergency readmissions and healthcare costs.
Date Issued
2026-07-07
Date Acceptance
2026-06-15
Citation
Scientific Reports, 2026
ISSN
2045-2322
Publisher
Nature Portfolio
Journal / Book Title
Scientific Reports
Copyright Statement
© The Author(s) 2026. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
License URL
Identifier
10.1038/s41598-026-58441-x
Publication Status
Published online
Date Publish Online
2026-07-07