Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many people have been diagnosed with spinal muscular atrophy in the UK by (a) age and (b) gender in the last five years.

NHS Digital does not hold a list/register of all patients that have been diagnosed with spinal muscular atrophy. However, data is available on the first period of admitted patient care under one consultant within one health care provider known as finished admission episodes. This is set out in the attached table showing the count of finished admission episodes with a primary diagnosis of spinal muscular atrophy in England by patient age group and gender in each year from 2015-16 to 2019-20.

It should be noted that this information is not a specific count of people, as an individual may have more than one admission in any given period. As health is a devolved matter, it would be for the devolved administrations of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to make decisions about collecting data in their respective countries.