Another “Victorian disease” which the left is quick to talk up is rickets. Ironically, again, the incidence of rickets grew under New Labour and has fallen since.
The charts above take data from NHS Digital for England. Primary diagnoses mean people who are admitted because of rickets. Secondary diagnoses mean people who are admitted with rickets but something else caused the admission.
These are quite small numbers so it is perhaps unwise to compare annual figures, especially for primary diagnoses. If you take the first three years (2007/8-2009/10) and compare with the last three years (2020/21-2022/23) you get a 43% drop in primary diagnoses and a 17% drop in secondary diagnoses.
If you consider that the number of children in the UK grew from 13.0 million in 2008/9 to 14.5 million in 2021/22 then the relevant population (the vast bulk of active rickets is seen in children) grew by 12% and you can say the rate of primary diagnoses has fallen 48% and secondary diagnoses 19%.
With rickets levels peaking in early 2012 the chief medical officers of the UK wrote to clinicians to stress the need for Vitamin D supplementation.
When looking at rickets in under 16s this study [Julies, et al 2020] in the BMJ Archives of Disease in Childhood found that: “The incidence of nutritional rickets in the UK is lower than expected” at 1 per 200,000 children. 81% of the children with rickets were BAME and 78% were not taking Vitamin D supplementation in spite of being eligible for a free supply.
Rickets is not some generalised Victorian poverty plague. It is largely a specific problem of children with darker skins not getting the Vitamin D they need to thrive in a Northern climate. Talking in a generalised way about poverty and austerity will not get information to BAME mothers that keeps their children healthy.
Phil Taylor 