Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what information his Department holds on the cost to the public purse for the treatment of fetal alcohol spectrum disorders in accordance with the NICE Quality Standard QS204 in each of the last five years.

The Department does not collect information on the numbers and proportion of patients with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) because it is not possible to specifically classify FASD within the National Health Service dataset. FASD is an umbrella term used to describe a range of cognitive, behavioural, physical and mental health conditions associated with prenatal alcohol exposure. In the NHS dataset, it is possible to identify conditions that could have been caused by prenatal exposure to alcohol, but it cannot be drawn from the data that prenatal exposure to alcohol was the direct cause of these conditions.

The cost associated with treatment for people affected by FASD as outlined in the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence Quality Standard in England (QS204) is also not collected.