Depressive Illnesses

Mr. Swire
To ask the Secretary of State for Health what estimate he has made of the number of people with mild or moderate depression in (a) East Devon, (b) the South West region and (c) England.

Phil Hope
This information is not held centrally.

Information is not collected centrally about diagnoses for any condition in primary care, so reliable data are not available about the number of people with mild or moderate depression. However, an Office of National Statistics survey recently found that one sixth of the population suffers from a common mental health problem at any one time.