Written question asked by Lord Lansley (Conservative) on Tuesday, 8 February 2005, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Monday, 28 February 2005. It was answered by Baroness Winterton of Doncaster (Labour) on Monday, 28 February 2005 on behalf of the Department of Health.

Dept of Health

Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many hospital admissions have been due to deliberate self-harm in (a) persons aged under 18 and (b) persons aged 18 years and over in each year since 1986. - Including fact that this information is not centrally available.

Answer: Mr. Lansley: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many hospital admissions have been due to deliberate self-harm in (a) persons aged under 18 and (b) persons aged 18 years and over in each year since 1986. [216168] Ms Rosie Winterton: This information is not centrally available. The Department collects information on numbers of finished consultant episodes of people who have been admitted in national health service hospitals with a primary diagnosis of injury and poisoning. However, it is not possible to ascertain the number of admissions due to deliberate self harm. As part of the implementation of the national suicide prevention strategy, three centres have been established to monitor deliberate self-harm and provide accurate data on national trends and patterns to help inform suicide prevention interventions and detect changing patterns or local variations.

Secondary information