Around 80 young women and girls aged in Milton Keynes hospitalised for self-harm in 2021-22

Young women inMilton Keynesare more than twice as likely to be hospitalised for self-harm as their male counterparts, new figures suggest.

It comes as theGovernmentpublished the National Suicide Prevention Strategy on Monday, launching more than 100 new initiatives to reduce suicide rates within two-and-a-half years, and includes a particular focus on young people.

The latest data from the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities shows there were around 80 hospitalisations of young women and girls aged between 10 and 24 in Milton Keynes for self-harm in 2021-22.

It meant there were 331 admissions per 100,000 adolescent women in the area that year.

However, this fell to 130 admissions per 100,000 adolescent men, meaning a young woman was around 2.6 times as likely to be hospitalised for self-harm.

This followed the trend acrossEngland, where there were 35,000 hospitalisations of young women and girls due to self-harm in 2021-22.

This was more than four times as many admissions as for young men and boys.

The Government pledged to implement a new national alert system – where people can notify relevant authorities about individuals, suicide methods, or risks – and improve school mental health services so half of pupils can access support by March 2025.

Mental health charity YoungMinds said the figures are “deeply concerning” and urged the Government to prioritise young people's mental health and address the root causes.

Professor Peter Fonagy, chief executive of the Anna Freud mental health charity, said: “Pressure to look a certain way, achieve academically and comparison on social media all contribute to setting the bar much higher for girls and young women within society.

“By recognising these types of drivers of anxiety and distress in our children and young people earlier we can help to develop and improve intervention programmes.”

An NHS spokesperson said the coronavirus pandemic has “taken an inevitable toll on people's mental health.”

A spokesman for The Department of Health and Social Care said: “We’re extending coverage of mental health support teams to at least 50% of pupils in England by the end of March 2025.

“An extra £2.3 billion a year is being invested to enable an additional 345,000 children and young people to access NHS-funded mental health support quicker.”