Polycystic Ovary Syndrome: Health Services
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if his Department will (a) collect and (b) publish data on the (i) prevalence, (ii) diagnosis and (iii) treatment of PCOS in England.
Answered by Karin Smyth
Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is a condition that can be diagnosed in multiple different ways, including without a diagnosis code and in primary care settings, and therefore it is very difficult to identify the number of specific diagnostic tests carried out overall.
However, the diagnosis code for PCOS is recorded in the Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) dataset. The number of patients treated in secondary care where the primary diagnosis is PCOS is as follows:
- in 2023/24, there were 2,226 outpatient attendances for patients with a recorded primary diagnosis of PCOS; and
- in 2023/24, there were 1,169 admitted treatment episodes for patients with a recorded primary diagnosis of PCOS.
The most recent publications for outpatient and admitted activity in 2023/24, namely the Hospital Admitted Patient Care Activity Diagnosis 2023 to 2024 table and the Outpatient Primary Diagnosis by Attendance Type 2023 to 2024 table, have been placed in the Library due to the size of the data.
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