Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Bethell on 22 January (HL12047), what steps they are taking to improve the collection of data in relation to the level of (1) extreme anxiety, (2) self-harm, and (3) suicide, amongst young and adolescent boys.

We are working with NHS Digital, mental health providers and partner organisations to improve the collection of data in the mental health services data set on people referred to secondary mental health services for anxiety and those who self-harm whilst an inpatient. We also fund the Multicentre for Self-Harm to provide representative and reliable data on self-harm in England.

Data on suicide registrations by coroners is collected by the Office for National Statistics and there is a time lag due to the length of time it can take to hold an inquest. Public Health England is piloting a national real-time surveillance system to monitor suspected suicide, by collecting early real time data which can be used to identify patterns of risk and causal factors, to inform national and local responses. HM Treasury has announced £1.2million funding to help support the development of the national system.