Asked by: Geraint Davies (Independent - Swansea West)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the implications for his policies of trends in the number of children referred for mental health care.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
We are committed to increasing investment into mental health services by at least £2.3 billion a year by March 2024 and have set out our aim in the NHS Long Term Plan for an additional 345,000 children and young people to be able to get the mental health support they need. We therefore expect to see referrals rise as services expand their capacity.
As part of this expansion, we are rolling out mental health support teams in schools and colleges. As of spring 2022 there were 287 mental health support teams in place in over 4,700 schools and colleges across the country, offering support to children experiencing anxiety, depression, and other common mental health issues. Mental health support teams now cover 26% of pupils, a year earlier than originally planned, and this should have increased to 399 teams in April 2023, expected to cover around 35% of pupils, with over 500 planned to be up and running by 2024.
In recognition of the rising demand created by the pandemic, we invested £79 million extra in 2021/22 to significantly expand children’s mental health services, including enabling at least 2,000 more children and young people to access eating disorder services. NHS England also announced a further £40 million in 2021/22 to address the COVID-19 impact on children and young people’s mental health.
Asked by: Geraint Davies (Independent - Swansea West)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to page 20 of the UK Health Security Agency report entitled Chemical hazards and poisons report, Issue 28, published in June 2022, how many attributable deaths there were in (a) East Midlands, (b) East of England, (c) Greater London, (d) North East, (e) North West, (f) South East, (g) South West, (h) West Midlands, (i) Yorkshire and the Humber and (j) England for nitrogen dioxide NO2 in 2019.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
The numbers of attributable deaths due to nitrogen dioxide (NO2) for the listed areas have not been calculated. The most recent estimates of mortality burden associated with exposure to air pollution in the United Kingdom take into account exposure to the air pollution mixture of NO2 and fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and are published in the UK Health Security Agency Chemical Hazards and Poisons Report (2022), which is available at the following link:
The burden of long-term exposure to air pollution in 2019 in the UK was estimated to be an effect equivalent to 29,000 to 43,000 deaths for adults aged 30 years old and over.
Asked by: Geraint Davies (Independent - Swansea West)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to page 20 of the UK Health Security Agency report entitled Chemical Hazards and Poisons Report, Issue 28, published in June 2022, how many attributable deaths there were in (a) East Midlands, (b) East of England, (c) Greater London, (d) North East, (e) North West, (f) South East, (g) South West, (h) West Midlands, (i) Yorkshire and the Humber and (j) England for fine particulate matter (PM2.5) in 2019.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
The information is not held in the format requested. The following table shows the fraction of mortality attributable to particulate air pollution, measured as fine particulate matter, PM2.5, for 2019, in each region as a percentage.
Region | 2019 |
East Midlands | 7.4 |
East of England | 7.6 |
Greater London | 8.8 |
North East | 4.9 |
North West | 6.2 |
South East | 7.2 |
South West | 5.9 |
West Midlands | 7.3 |
Yorkshire and the Humber | 6.6 |
England | 7.1 |
The numbers of attributable deaths have not been calculated; the provided values represent the percentage of annual deaths from all causes in those aged 30 and older.
Asked by: Geraint Davies (Independent - Swansea West)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 25 April 2023 to Question 181820 on Air Pollution: Death, how many adult deaths there were from (a) heart disease, (b) stroke, (c) chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, (d) lung cancer and (e) dementia and Alzheimer’s disease in Greater London in each year since 2016.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
UK Health Security Agency has not calculated the proportion of adult deaths related to these outcomes due to air pollution in Greater London. However, the following table shows the fraction of mortality attributable to particulate air pollution estimates, measured as fine particulate matter, PM2.5, as available in English Local Authorities and regions annually. The methods and data inputs were updated in 2018, therefore estimates for Greater London are provided in the table below from 2018 until 2021. Estimates are available before 2018 but are not directly comparable.
Fraction of mortality attributable to particulate air pollution | Year | |||
Region | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 |
Greater London | 9.0 % | 8.8 % | 7.1 % | 6.5 % |
Asked by: Geraint Davies (Independent - Swansea West)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment her Department has made of the impact of the shortage of health visitors on (a) children with special educational needs and disabilities and (b) other vulnerable children.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
It is the responsibility of local authority commissioners and their service provider to determine health visitor numbers, based on local health needs. Guidance is that health visitor-led needs assessments should determine interventions or referrals for children with special education needs and disabilities or other vulnerabilities.
Asked by: Geraint Davies (Independent - Swansea West)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the difference is between (a) emissions, (b) concentrations, (c) human exposures, (d) health impacts and (e) death outcomes when referring to air pollution in health statistics.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
When referring to air pollution in health statistics, emissions is the term used to describe the gases and particles that are released into the air or emitted by various sources, for example road transport. The concentration of a specific air pollutant is the amount of material per unit volume of air. Concentrations are most commonly expressed as mass per unit volume (for example, micrograms per cubic meter, µg/m3). Human exposure refers to any contact between an airborne contaminant and a surface of the human body, either outer, for example the skin, or inner, for example the respiratory tract. Health impacts are negative changes in health resulting from exposure to a source of pollution, such as exacerbation of asthma, increases in respiratory and cardiovascular hospital admissions and mortality.
Asked by: Geraint Davies (Independent - Swansea West)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will publish a list of currently applicable regulations and guidance used by his Department on ventilation and indoor air quality that still refers to withdrawn technical standards such as EN 13779:2007.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) is not able to comment on technical standards, such as EN13779:2007. We note that EN13779:2007 has been replaced by BS EN16798-1:2019. BS EN 16798-1:2019 provides a method for designing ventilation rates to dilute individual substances. It provides default design carbon dioxide concentrations above outdoor concentrations which are consistent with international regulations on ventilation, as identified by UKHSA work.
Asked by: Geraint Davies (Independent - Swansea West)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether attributable deaths is an alternative term used for premature deaths when referring to deaths caused by air pollution.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
Long-term exposure to air pollution is understood to contribute to the risk of dying from certain conditions. The annual number of attributable deaths associated with long-term average concentrations of pollutants is not an estimate of the number of people whose untimely death is caused entirely by air pollution. Instead, it is a way of representing the effect of air pollution across the whole population.
In public health, ‘premature deaths’ is usually used to refer to deaths that occur before the average age of death in a population, before the age of 75 years old. This is not the same as ‘attributable deaths’, which represent the total mortality effect across the whole population, including those over 75 years old. It is likely that deaths attributable to air pollution will be disproportionately influenced by deaths at older ages, such as from cardiovascular and respiratory disease.
Asked by: Geraint Davies (Independent - Swansea West)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the difference is between attributable deaths referring to air pollution and deaths reported on death certificates.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
Long-term exposure to air pollution is understood to contribute to the risk of dying from certain conditions. The annual number of ‘attributable deaths’ associated with long-term average concentrations of pollutants is not an estimate of the number of people whose untimely death is caused entirely by air pollution. Instead, it is a way of representing the effect of air pollution across the whole population.
Causes of death on death certificates record the sequence of medical conditions and relevant events leading to, or contributing to, the death, based on the deceased's healthcare records and other available information, such as laboratory tests or post-mortem investigation. Generally, it is unusual for wider risk factors, such as exposure to air pollution, to be recorded among causes of death.
Asked by: Geraint Davies (Independent - Swansea West)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many people died from smoking in (a) England and (b) North Ireland in each year since 2017.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
Data for the number of deaths from smoking in England is estimated in the local tobacco profiles and is produced for three-year periods. The latest data shows that between 2017 and 2019, 191,903 deaths were estimated to be attributable to smoking, or roughly 64,000 a year. Data from 2020 onwards is not yet published.
The Department is not aware of annual data from Northern Ireland regarding smoking deaths per year. However, as stated in Northern Ireland’s Mid Term Review Tobacco Control Strategy, “Smoking is the single greatest cause of preventable illness and premature death in Northern Ireland, killing round 2,300 people each year.” More information is available at the following link:
https://www.health-ni.gov.uk/publications/health-survey-northern-ireland-smoking-trends