National Epilepsy Week 2016

EDM number 12 in 2016-17, proposed by Norman Lamb on 18/05/2016.
Categorised under the topics of Charities, Diseases, Health education and preventive medicine and Health services.

That this House notes that 15 to 21 May 2016 is National Epilepsy Week, and congratulates the work of SUDEP Action and other charities to raise awareness, promote research and provide information and support for those affected by the condition; further notes with concern that people with epilepsy are 11 times more likely to die prematurely than people without the condition, that many deaths are potentially avoidable, are in the young and that there have been 14,926 reported deaths since governments across the UK pledged to take action to save lives following SUDEP Action's National Audit of Epilepsy Deaths in 2002; congratulates Cornwall NHS Foundation Trust, Plymouth University, SUDEP Action and Cornwall Royal Hospital on winning the BMJ Neurology Team of the Year Award for enhanced patient safety in epilepsy for an innovative approach to tackling mortality; acknowledges the fall in the number of epilepsy-related deaths in Cornwall, with no deaths reported in the community-based learning disability service in the last five years; urges NHS England to support the dissemination of best practice across the country and the signposting of families to SUDEP Action after a death; commends innovative approaches to self-monitoring and the management of risk factors, such as the SUDEP and Seizure Safety Checklist and EpSMon, the self-monitor app; further acknowledges the Government's duty to do everything it can to improve standards of epilepsy care and take action so that lives can be saved; and therefore calls on the Government to work closely with all national epilepsy charities towards achieving this goal.

This motion has been signed by a total of 30 MPs.