§ Mr. CohenTo ask the Secretary of State for Health what national statistics are collected on the incidence of and trends in suicide and self-harm; and if he will make a statement. [35523]
§ Mr. BowisThe Office of National Statistics collects data on deaths from suicide which have been published in the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys series DH2.
20WData on suicide verdicts and verdicts where the cause of death was aggravated by lack of care or by self-neglect are published in the Home Office statistical bulletin, "Statistics of Deaths Reported to Coroners: England and Wales". Detailed analysis of trends and patterns in suicide have been published in a series of articles in "Population Trends", numbers 2, 35, 69, 71 and 80. The Department of Health's Public Health common data set national volumes also include trends on suicide. Information on the incidence of attempted suicide and self-harm is available for cases that result in treatment as an in-patient in hospital. The data are published in volume 2 of "Hospital Episode Statistics: England" for the years 1989–90 to 1993–94. All these publications are available in the Library.
The overall trend, which is down by 7.2 per cent. since 1990, is encouraging. The suicide rate for young men aged between 15 and 29, which had been rising since 1982, has fallen in the last years in the 15 to 19 age group and begun to plateau among 20 to 29-year-olds. The rate among people over 75 is also continuing to fall. It is not possible to derive any trends from the figures on attempted suicide and self-harm since a large and variable proportion of episodes with a diagnosis of injury and poisoning have no attributable cause.