Asked by: Lord Rooker (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what is their latest assessment of lifetime direct medical costs associated with births affected by neural tube defects compared to those unaffected; and why they cited German research in the consultation on Amending the Bread and Flour Regulations 1998, which ran from 1 September to 23 November, rather than UK research.
Answered by Lord Markham - Shadow Minister (Science, Innovation and Technology)
No specific assessment has been made. The consultation on amending the Bread and Flour Regulations 1998 and the Bread and Flour Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1998 cited research from Germany, as a relevant academic study in the United Kingdom was not available.
Asked by: Lord Rooker (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of introducing a (1) Birth Defects Prevention Month, and (2) Folic Acid Awareness Week, similar to those in the United States.
Answered by Lord Markham - Shadow Minister (Science, Innovation and Technology)
No specific assessment has been made. However, the Government promotes the recommendation to take folic acid supplements to those who could become or are pregnant and other measures to promote good health in the first 1,000 days of life, through the Better Health Start for Life programme and via online National Health Service information.
Asked by: Lord Rooker (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether all regions of England are covered by the register of congenital anomaly cases.
Answered by Lord Markham - Shadow Minister (Science, Innovation and Technology)
The National Congenital Anomaly and Rare Disease Service collects data for all regions in England and the Crown Dependencies for births from 1 January 2018.
Asked by: Lord Rooker (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what is the average prevalence of births affected by neural tube defects in countries applying food fortification with folic acid, compared to those who do not.
Answered by Lord Markham - Shadow Minister (Science, Innovation and Technology)
This information is not held in the format requested.
Asked by: Lord Rooker (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many births there have been in each of the last five years that were classed as (1) spina bifida, (2) hydrocephalus, and (3) anencephaly, caused by neural tube defects.
Answered by Lord Markham - Shadow Minister (Science, Innovation and Technology)
The following table shows the number of births and birth prevalence for spina bifida, hydrocephalus and anencephaly caused by neural tube defects in 2018 and 2019. Data prior to 2018 is not available in the format requested. Data for 2020 will be published in December.
| Number of births in 2019 | Prevalence per 10,000 total births and 95% confidence interval in 2019 | Number of births in 2018 | Prevalence per 10,000 total births and 95% confidence interval in 2018 |
Spina bifida | 335 | 5.4 (4.9-6.1) | 336 | 5.3 (4.8-6) |
Hydrocephalus | 266 | 4.3 (3.8-4.9) | 242 | 3.9 (3.4-4.4) |
Anencephalus and similar | 317 | 5.2 (4.6-5.8) | 277 | 4.4 (3.9-5) |
Source: The National Congenital Anomaly and Rare Disease Registration Service
Note:
The denominator used to calculate prevalence is obtained from the Office for National Statistics and reflects all live and still births in 2018 and 2019. These figures are for England and the crown dependencies.
Asked by: Lord Rooker (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many blood samples connected to neural tube defects have been sent for analysis to the Centre for Disease Control in the United States in each of the last five years.
Answered by Lord Markham - Shadow Minister (Science, Innovation and Technology)
The NHS Fetal Anomaly Screening Programme aims to detect neural tube defects through the 20-week screening scan rather than a blood sample.
Asked by: Lord Rooker (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many pregnancies affected by neural tube defects were second or subsequent pregnancies, in each of the last five years.
Answered by Lord Markham - Shadow Minister (Science, Innovation and Technology)
The information is not collected in the format requested.
Asked by: Lord Rooker (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether all measures of (1) whole blood folate, and (2) serum folate, in the UK are conducted by mass spectrometry-based methods.
Answered by Lord Markham - Shadow Minister (Science, Innovation and Technology)
The information is not collected centrally.
Asked by: Lord Rooker (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what is the prevalence of births affected by neural tube defects in the UK; and what assessment they have made, if any, of how this figure compares with equivalent figures in other OECD member states.
Answered by Lord Markham - Shadow Minister (Science, Innovation and Technology)
Two neural tube defects, anencephaly and spina bifida, are screened for by the NHS Fetal Anomaly Screening Programme at the 20 week scan. In England and the crown dependencies, there were 752 births with neural tube defects in 2019 and a prevalence of 12.2 births per 10,000 total births.
The National Congenital Anomaly and Rare Disease Registration Service submits data to EUROCAT, the European network of population-based registries for the epidemiological surveillance of congenital anomalies. In 2019, the overall prevalence of neural tube defects for participating full registries across Europe, including full participating regions of England, was 11.36 per 10,000 births.
Asked by: Lord Rooker (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what Government-sponsored research is currently underway regarding neural tube defect births.
Answered by Lord Markham - Shadow Minister (Science, Innovation and Technology)
Through the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), the Department funds research into the safety of maternity and neonatal services and the national maternity ambition to halve maternal deaths, stillbirths and neonatal deaths and brain injury by 2025. The NIHR’s Oxford Biomedical Research Centre has supported 19 studies on neural tube defects. The NIHR has also funded a £2.2 million multicentre randomised controlled trial, which included children with neural tube defects, to determine the optimal type of shunt to treat hydrocephalus and reduce infection rates. The NIHR welcomes funding applications for research into any aspect of human health, including research on neural tube birth defects.