Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, at what level his Department values the reduction of risk of death per fatal casualty prevented; and if he will give an example of policy intervention where this evaluation was made.

The value of a prevented fatality is not normally used in the appraisal of policy or project proposals by the Department. The standard unit of impact for appraisal of projects and policies that have an impact upon mortality or morbidity, including prevention of fatalities, is a statistical life year (SLY), with adjustment for quality of life impacts where appropriate (in which case Quality Adjusted Life Years (QALYs) are used). SLYs and QALYs are valued at roughly £60,000. This valuation is consistent with the willingness of members of the public to pay for improvement in health and risk outcomes elicited in the study that underpins the valuation of prevented fatalities by the Department for Transport and other departments (Carthy T., Chilton S., Covey J.,. Hopkins L, Jones-Lee M., Loomes G., Pidgeon N., Spencer A.,. “The Contingent-Valuation of Safety and the Safety of Contingent Valuation, part 2: The CV/SG ʻChainedʼ Approach”, Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, 1999, 17: 187-213.)

This valuation of SLYs is used by the Department in its impact assessment of the proposed draft regulations for standardised packaging of tobacco products upon which the Department is currently consulting.

A copy of the impact assessment has been placed in the Library and is available at:

www.gov.uk/government/consultations/standardised-packaging-of-tobacco-products-draft-regulations