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Meningitis
Mr. Cohen : To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many cases of meningitis there have been in the last six months ; what was the figure for the equivalent period last year ; and to what factors he attributes the change.
Mr. Dorrell : The table shows the overall figures for both meningitis and meningococcal meningitis.
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Notifications reported to OPCS-England and Wales
(All data are provisional)
|Last 6 months|Last 6 months
|1990 |1989
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Meningitis (all forms) |1,105 |1,194
Meningococcal meningitis |369 |470
Deaths<1> |55 |96
<1> Deaths assigned to meningococcal infection.
It is not yet clear whether the small decline in numbers represents a new trend, reversing the upsurge which began in 1986, nor to what it might be attributable. The position is being monitored closely.
Diabetics
Mr. Gareth Wardell : To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will enable diabetics to be supplied with needles for the Novopen on prescription through the national health service.
Mrs. Virginia Bottomley : National health service supply arrangements for insulin pens and needles need to be considered together. Subject to our normal evaluation of individual brands, we would consider making pens and needles prescribable, as an alternative to syringes, if this could be done without additional cost. Discussions with suppliers are currently in progress.
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Gulf Crisis
Mr. Cummings : To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many medical personnel and in what categories are being called upon to serve in Her Majesty's forces in the Gulf ; and what assessment has been made of the effect on the quality of service and waiting lists in (a) Sunderland, (b) Durham and (c) Hartlepool.
Mr. Dorrell : I refer the hon. Member to the reply of my hon. Friend the Minister for Health to the hon. Member for Coventry, South-East (Mr. Nellist) on 14 January at column 415. No assessment has been made centrally of the impact on individual health authorities. We expect that all emergency cases will continue to be treated normally and that any effect on the treatment of non-emergency cases from waiting lists will be limited and short-lived.
Plymouth Health Authority
Dr. Moonie : To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will provide a table showing the waiting lists in the Plymouth health authority area, by hospital, for the surgical, orthopaedic, ear, nose and throat, eye and neurology specialties, for January, April, June, September and December of the current year.
Mrs. Virginia Bottomley : Information is available only quarterly and is not collected centrally for individual hospitals. The latest available information for Plymouth health authority is given in the table.
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------------------------------------------------------ General surgery |1,027|1,093|1,093|1,098 Trauma and orthopaedics |1,129|1,086|1,231|1,223 Ear, nose and throat |1,116|1,116|1,069|945 Ophthalmology |616 |631 |549 |431 Neurology |25 |43 |44 |41
Dr. Moonie : To ask the Secretary of State for Health what examination he has undertaken of the observance by Plymouth health authority of the procedures governing competitive tendering and the award of contracts in respect of the contract for the lease of its transport fleet.
Mr. Dorrell : None. I am advised that the current contract for the provision of leased cars to Plymouth health authority has been extended to March 1991 to enable the authority to link with Cornwall health authority in a joint tendering exercise to achieve improved value for money. That exercise is being carried out in full accordance with the standing orders of the health authorities concerned, and is subject to independent statutory audit.
Dr. Moonie : To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) if he will provide a table showing the quarterly spending on office refurbishment and equipment for 1989-90 and 1990-91 by Plymouth health authority ;
(2) if he will provide a table showing what moneys have been paid by Plymouth health authority to private nursing homes and other organisations not directly accountable to the authority for each year 1988-89 to 1990-91, inclusive.
Mr. Dorrell : Information in the form requested is not held centrally. The hon. Member may wish to contact Sir Vernon Seccombe, the chairman of Plymouth health authority, for details.
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Elderly People
Mr. Alfred Morris : To ask the Secretary of State for Health if, pursuant to the reply to the hon. Member for Norwich, North (Mr. Thompson) on 6 December, Official Report, column 174, he will make a further statement on the action programme in favour of the elderly.
Mr. Dorrell : On 26 November 1990 the Social Affairs Council reached a decision for a Community action programme for the elderly in the employment, social security and health areas. The action programme will concentrate on : the exchange of information and experience ; the establishment of a monitoring centre ; and consideration of the feasibility and usefulness of establishing a network of innovative experiences.
A European Year of the Elderly was proposed for 1993.
Social Work Students
Mr. Hinchcliffe : To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) what action he is taking to ensure that adequate funding is available to social work agencies taking practice students on placement ; (2) what action he is taking to rectify the shortfall in practice placements for social work students ;
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(3) what action he is taking to ensure that enough qualified social work practice teachers are available by 1995 to meet directives of the Central Council for Education and Training in Social Work.Mrs. Virginia Bottomley : Employers in the personal social services are responsible for ensuring that they have adequate numbers of suitably qualified staff. In consequence they have a primary interest in providing high-quality practice experience for social work students. We recognise that it is important to secure this provision and, to this end, we shall shortly be announcing a new initiative aimed at assisting employers to boost the supply of practice teachers and placements as part of a wider training strategy for the personal social services.
Nurses (Grading Appeals)
Mr. Alton : To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many grading appeals have been received by nurses employed by the Mersey region ; what is the average time taken in dealing with an appeal ; how many are still outstanding ; and when it is anticipated all appeals will have been heard.
Mrs. Virginia Bottomley : This information is not collected centrally.
Breast Cancer
Mrs. Ray Michie : To ask the Secretary of State for Health what proportion of health service funds were spent on providing facilities for breast cancer screening for each year since 1979.
Mrs. Virginia Bottomley : The Government began setting up a comprehensive breast screening programme in 1987.
The proportion of health service funds spent on providing facilities for breast screening in England for each financial year since 1987 is :
|Total NHS |Cost of Breast |Percentage of
|Funds (Gross) |Cancer Screening|Total Funds
|£ million |£ million
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1987-88 |17,657 |5.894 |0.03
1988-89 |19,604 |18.182 |0.09
1989-90 |21,147 |31.834 |0.15
1990-91 |23,687 |25.573 |0.10
Mrs. Ray Michie : To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will list all the hospitals in England and Wales which provide full facilities for the screening of breast cancer and the total number of patients screened for each year since 1979.
Mrs. Virginia Bottomley : The information is not available in the form requested. The Government began setting up a comprehensive breast screening programme in 1987. The service is provided mainly on a supra- district basis and not every screening centre is based at a hospital. Mobile screening units and static units not based in hospitals are also used. The table shows a list of districts in which breast screening services are based.
Available figures show that from April 1988 to March 1990, in England, Scotland and Wales, 304,952 women were screened. These figures apply only to the centres with data for full years and therefore do not reflect our overall activity in breast screening.
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Host districts of NHS breast screening programmeNorthern Regional Health Authority
Newcastle
Gateshead
North Tees
West Cumbria
Yorkshire Regional Health Authority
Huddersfield
York
Hull
Leeds Eastern
Trent Regional Health Authority
Nottingham
Leicestershire
South Lincolnshire
Rotherham
South Derbyshire
Sheffield
East Anglian Regional Health Authority
West Norfolk and Wisbech
Peterborough
East Suffolk
Norwich
Cambridge
North West Thames Regional Health Authority
Riverside
Barnet
South Bedfordshire
North East Thames Regional Health Authority
West Essex
Bloomsbury
North East Essex
City and Hackney
Waltham Forest
Barking, Havering and Brentwood
Haringey
Southend
South East Thames Regional Health Authority
Brighton
Canterbury and Thanet
Camberwell
South West Thames Regional Health Authority
South West Surrey
Worthing
Wandsworth
Wesssex Regional Health Authority
Southampton
Isle of Wight
Portsmouth and South East Hampshire
East Dorset
Swindon/Bath
Winchester
Oxford Regional Health Authority
Aylesbury Vale
Northampton
Wycombe
Milton Keynes
Kettering
West Berkshire
East Berkshire
Oxfordshire
South Western Regional Health Authority
Cornwall
Plymouth
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Bristol and WestonExeter
Cheltenham
Somerset
West Midlands Regional Health Authority
North Staffordshire
Coventry
Dudley/Wolverhampton
Walsall/Sandwell
Shropshire
Mid Staffordshire
South East Staffordshire
West Birmingham
South Birmingham
Bromsgrove
Mersey Regional Health Authority
Liverpool
Warrington
Crewe
Chester
Macclesfield
Wirral
North Western Regional Health Authority
South Manchester
Wigan
Bolton
East Lancashire
North Lancashire
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