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Dept of Health

Answer

Mr. Willis: To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will estimate the number of attempted suicides of adolescent (a) males and (b) females in each year since 1997. [179059] Ms Rosie Winterton: It is not possible to estimate numbers of attempted suicides. However, the number of episodes in national health service hospitals with a primary diagnosis of injury and poisoning, and a cause of self inflicted injury in England by age group and gender are shown in the table. Finished consultant episodes with primary diagnosis of injury or poisoning and a cause of self inflicted injury, by age group and sex, 1997-98 to 2002-03 NHS hospitals, England _________________________________________________________________________________________________. Under 16 16-18 Male Female All persons Male Female All persons 2002-03 1,129 5,634 6,763 1,485 3,897 5,382 2001-02 1,219 5,148 6,368 1,692 4,182 5,874 2000-01 1,127 4,820 5,974 1,861 4,296 6,159 1999-2000 1,218 4,635 5,863 1,867 4,096 5,969 1998-99 1,111 4,206 5,318 2,155 4,212 6,371 1997-98 1,180 4,913 6,126 2,360 4,729 7,160 19 or over All ages Male Female All persons Male Female All persons 2002-03 26,675 31,400 58,086 29,355 40,967 70,336 2001-02 28,078 32,733 60,821 31,107 42,184 73,377 2000-01 30,106 33,250 63,367 33,172 42,414 75,630 1999-2000 31,249 33,586 64,895 34,392 42,361 76,833 1998-1999 32,816 33,168 66,020 36,153 41,612 77,811 1997-98 34,330 35,434 70,187 37,951 45,110 83,590 _________________________________________________________________________________________________. Notes: Unknown age or sex All persons and All ages totals may not agree with the sum of age or sex breakdown figures due to episodes where age and/or sex of patient is unknown. Finished Consultant Episode (FCE) An FCE is defined as a period of admitted patient care under one consultant within one healthcare provider. Please note that the figures do not represent the number of patients, as a person may have more than one episode of care within the year. Diagnosis (Primary Diagnosis) The primary diagnosis is the first of up to 14 (7 prior to 2002-03) diagnosis fields in the Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) data set and provides the main reason why the patient was in hospital. IDCD-10 codes SOO-T98 have been used in his analysis. Cause Code The cause code is a supplementary code that indicates the nature of any external cause of injury, poisoning or other adverse effects. Cause codes X60-X84 have been used for this analysis. Grossing Figures are grossed for both coverage and missing/invalid clinical data, except for 2001-02 and 2002-03, which are not yet adjusted for shortfalls. Source: Hospital Episode Statistics (HES), Department of Health.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

179059; 423 c102W

Session

2003-04

Subjects

Gender Young people Suicide Self-harm

Contains statistics

Yes

Link

View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk