Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment the Government has made of changes in the levels of the mortality rate during (a) infancy, (b) childhood and (c) adolescence in the last five years.

The Department commissioned Public Health England to undertake a review of trends in mortality rates across age groups in the United Kingdom. This provides an assessment for five-year age groups between 2001 and 2016. It was published on 11 December 2018 at the following link:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/786515/Recent_trends_in_mortality_in_England.pdf

Children’s mental and physical health is central to the NHS Long Term Plan. This follows the National Maternity Safety Ambition to halve the 2010 rates of neonatal deaths (as well as stillbirths, maternal deaths and brain injuries that occur during or soon after birth) by 2025, and to achieve a reduction in these rates by 2020. Achieving this ambition would place the UK amongst other high-income countries with the lowest stillbirth and neonatal mortality rates.