Community-acquired lower respiratory tract infections: the annual cost to the National Health Service.

Authors: JF Guest & A Morris.
Source: British Journal of Medical Economics 1996; 10: 263-273.

ABSTRACT

This study, a UK prevalence-based burden of illness analysis, estimates the direct healthcare costs to the National Health Service (NHS) of managing 16.3 million episodes of community-acquired lower respiratory tract infection (LRTI) to be £1364 million annually at 1992/1993 prices. An estimated 236,683 annual cases of LRT1 treated in hospital (1.4% of all episodes) account for 62% of the annual burden. However, 13% of admissions (ie. 30,769) are discharged within one day. Managing 80% of these admissions in the community could potentially reduce the annual burden by between £10 million and £49 million.

The analysis demonstrates for the first time the substantial financial burden that LRTIs impose on the NHS - over a thousand million pounds every year. Over 60% of the burden is incurred in hospitals, although in-patients account for only 1.4% of LRTI episodes. The potential for decreasing NHS resource use through reducing both hospital admissions and the length of hospital stay is highlighted, and should be assessed in future studies.