Malcolm Moss (North East Cambridgeshire, Conservative)

To ask the Secretary of State for Health what assessment he has made of the causes of excess deaths within the Spearhead Group of local authorities considered off track from reaching their 2010 target of reducing the gap in life expectancy compared with the population as a whole by 10 per cent.

Phil Hope (Minister of State (Care Services; Minister for the East Midlands), Department of Health; Corby, Labour)

National level analysis of the life expectancy gap by the Department shows circulatory disease, cancer and respiratory disease account for around two thirds of the gap in men and women. Other drivers of the gap are digestive diseases, external causes of injury and poisoning, infections and parasitic diseases and deaths under 28 days. Further information is contained in "Tackling Health Inequalities: 2005-07 Policy and Data Update for the 2010 National Target", which has already been placed in the Library.

The relative contribution of specific causes varies from one Spearhead to another. The Health Inequalities Intervention Tool for Spearhead Areas, jointly developed by the Association of Public Health Observatories and the Department provides a breakdown of the causes of the life expectancy gap by disease type and age in each Spearhead local authority.