Malnutrition: Children
(asked on 11th January 2023) - View Source
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent estimate he has made of the number of children being admitted to A&E with an (a) primary and (b) secondary diagnosis of malnutrition per (i) month and (ii) year.
NHS Digital has provided a count of Emergency Care Data Set attendances where a primary or secondary diagnosis of malnutrition was recorded and the patient was aged under 0-17 years old, for each month between April 2021 and November 2022 in England. This information is provided in the table below.
Activity in English NHS Hospitals and English NHS commissioned activity in the independent sector | ||||
Year | Month | Primary diagnosis | Secondary Only | All diagnosis |
2021 | April | 12 | 7 | 19 |
2021 | May | 28 | 2 | 30 |
2021 | June | 20 | 8 | 28 |
2021 | July | 21 | 2 | 23 |
2021 | August | 29 | 10 | 39 |
2021 | September | 25 | 5 | 30 |
2021 | October | 25 | 2 | 27 |
2021 | November | 20 | 7 | 27 |
2021 | December | 22 | 1 | 23 |
2022 | January | 15 | 3 | 18 |
2022 | February | 17 | 4 | 21 |
2022 | March | 16 | 4 | 20 |
2022* | April | 27 | 2 | 29 |
2022* | May | 29 | 6 | 35 |
2022* | June | 19 | 4 | 23 |
2022* | July | 22 | 1 | 23 |
2022* | August | 19 | 2 | 21 |
2022* | September | 13 | 2 | 15 |
2022* | October | 19 | 1 | 20 |
2022* | November | 26 | 7 | 33 |
Source: Emergency Care Data Set (ECDS), NHS Digital
(* provisional data)
Some health conditions can lead to malnutrition in some children. This includes eating disorders, although malnutrition itself is not an eating disorder. Through the NHS Long-Term Plan, investment in children and young people's community eating disorder services has risen every year since 2016, with an extra £54 million per year from 2022/23. This extra funding will enhance the capacity of children and young people's community eating disorder teams across the country.