§ Vernon CoakerTo ask the Secretary of State for Health what recent assessment he has made of the numbers of people with myotonic dystrophy; and if he will make a statement. [49921]
§ Jacqui SmithWe have made no assessment of the numbers of people with myotonic dystrophy, as information on the prevalence of individual conditions is not collected centrally. We do have some data on hospital activity as shown in the table below.
Admissions for myotonic disorders
NHS Hospitals, England 1996–97 to 2000–01 1996–97 251 1997–98 253 1998–99 301 1999–00 316 2000–01 299 Please note that these figures are a count of in-patient admissions and therefore do not represent the number of patients. Data in this table are adjusted for both coverage and unknown/invalid clinical data, except for 2000–01 which are not yet adjusted for shortfalls.