Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make an estimate of the number of people with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.

The Office for Health Improvement and Disparities publishes a liver disease profile that compares local areas within England. Data on the number of people in the population, or the prevalence of people, with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is not collected.

The liver disease profile provides NAFLD hospital admission and mortality rates. However, these rates underestimate the level of NAFLD in the population as the great majority of people with NAFLD never experience any symptoms from the condition. Only a minority may progress to more serious forms of the disease that require hospital admission. It is unclear what proportion of people experience this serious disease, and therefore we cannot make a reasonable estimate of the number of people with NAFLD.