Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment he has undertaken of the validity of evidence linking time spent out of doors with improving vitamin D levels.

Public Health England monitors the diet and nutritional status of the United Kingdom’s population through the National Diet and Nutrition Survey (NDNS) rolling programme.

Data from the NDNS show that mean blood vitamin D concentrations were lowest in the winter months (January-March) and highest in the summer months (July-September). These data can be viewed at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/ndns-time-trend-and-income-analyses-for-years-1-to-9