§ Mr. CollinsTo ask the Secretary of State for Health how many cases of adhesive arachnoiditis have been diagnosed in the last 20 years; and if he will make a statement. [21960]
§ Mr. BoatengThe information requested is not available centrally. Statistics held by the Department of Health reflect only diagnostic information collected on in-patients attending National Health Service hospitals in England. The diagnostic information is held in the form of codes from the World Health Organisation International Classification of Diseases, which is ordered by the cause of disease. In this classification, arachnoiditis is not directly used as a term because it is a symptom, not a cause. The Department cannot determine the prevalence of incidence of arachnoiditis from the statistics collected centrally.