Hypothermia

Freedom of Information Request

Reference

015/23

Request Date

09 Jan 2023

Response Date

24 Jan 2023

Information Requested

Further to the FOI request reported in the media for Hypothermia cases during December 2022, please provide comparative numbers for the same period in December 2019, i.e. the latest period before Covid-19.

Response

Please see the table below showing number of incidents for any temperature recorded < 35 which is the NHS definition of hypothermia or a temperature recorded as ‘LO’. We have also provided the number of these that have a diagnostic code of 20 Heat/Cold Exposure for 2019 – 2022.

 

Please note we have no way to determine if the incident attended was inside or outside a home.

For the given data, you will see that some of the figures are shown as, five or less than five, please note that this figure has been suppressed because the statistical value is less than five. The Scottish Ambulance service has a duty, under the Data Protection Act to avoid directly or indirectly revealing any personal details. It is therefore widely understood that provision of statistics on small numbers, five or less are statistically suppressed upon disclosure. 

 

1 Dec 2019 - 18 Dec 2019
Healthboardareaname	Number of Incidents Temp < 35 Or LO	Number of Incidents with Diagnostic Code = Heat/Cold Exposure
Ayrshire and Arran	52	<5
Borders	9	<5
Dumfries and Galloway	19	<5
Fife	30	<5
Forth Valley	35	<5
Grampian	63	<5
Greater Glasgow and Clyde	189	5
Highland	27	<5
Lanarkshire	64	<5
Lothian	86	<5
Orkney	<5	<5
Tayside	45	<5
Western Isles	<5	<5
Sum:	624	17