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Nursing near you: North east England

Understanding key data

Welcome to the north east of England

The north east is the smallest English region by population and the second smallest by area, running from Northumberland in the north down to Cleveland in the south.

A large proportion of its communities are on the coast – coastal communities have seen poorer health outcomes compared with other areas in England.

This page was last updated in April 2024. We will update this page next in October 2024.

 

Gateshead millennium bridge

NHS North East and North Cumbria

Population health 

  • This ICS has a population of 3,139,823
  • On average, 49.0% of cancers were diagnosed at stages 1 and 2 in 2021 (3,395 individual cases) 
  • 3,029 deaths among people aged under 75 were from preventable causes (211.4 deaths per 100,000 people) 
  • 11,283 people aged under 65 were diagnosed with dementia in 2023. The estimated dementia diagnosis rate for people aged under 65 is 71.0%.
  • Between 2021 and 2022, 64,374 children under the age of 16 came from low-income families (27.0%) 
  • 4,530 children aged 10 and 11 in school year 6 are obese (25.9%) 
  • Between 2019 and 2021, 164 children died before their first birthday (3.6 infants per 1,000) 
  • Between 2018 and 2023, 82,598 eligible people aged 40 to 74 received an NHS health check (25.7%) 
  • 6,475 emergency hospital admissions were due to falls in people aged 65 and over (2,513 emergency hospital admissions per 100,000) 
  • Between 2020 and 2021, 460 additional deaths occurred in winter compared with other times of the year. Between August 2020 and July 2021, 8.4% of deaths were excess winter deaths. 

Life expectancy 

  • The life expectancy at birth for males is 67.5 years
  • The life expectancy at birth for females is 71.0 years 
  • The estimated average healthy life expectancy at birth for males is 51.5 years. This is a rough estimate due to missing data for a significant number of Local Authorities. 
  • The estimated average healthy life expectancy at birth for females is 51.7 years. This is a rough estimate due to missing data for a significant number of Local Authorities. 

Workforce planning 

  • There are 22,179 NHS nurses and health visitors in this ICS
  • As of August 2023, there were 70.6 NHS nurses and health visitors per 10,000 of the ICS population
  • As of August 2023, there were 23,282 nurses in Hospital and Community Health Service and GP settings (excluding health visitors)
  • There are 74.1 NHS nurses and GP nurses per 10,000 of the ICS population (excluding health visitors) 
  • As of August 2023, there were 22,067 Hospital and Community Health Service Nurses (excluding health visitors)
  • As of August 2023, there were 1,215 nurses working in general practice 
  • As of March 2023, 39,451 fixed-term equivalent days had been lost to workforce sickness
  • As of March 2023, the overall workforce sickness rate was 5.6% 
  • Between January and December 2022, £16,496,604 was spent on agency registered nurses 
3,139,823 Population of region
22,179 Full-time equivalent NHS nurses and health visitors

Data sources

The below data comes from several sources, each with different frequencies for updates. We’ll update the data on this page every 6 months.

Please download our ICS mapping data sources document for a full list.