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Brain Scans

Mr. Gordon Prentice: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many brain scans have gone missing at NHS hospitals in each year since 1992. [19297]

Mr. Horam: The information requested is not collected centrally.

Prescriptions (Information)

Mr. Barron: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what systems he has put in place for ensuring the coherence and consistency of written information provided to patients through patient packs, through (a) pharmacies and (b) the Prodigy prescribing pilot system. [19100]

Mr. Malone: The information to be supplied with medicines, in the form of labels and patient information leaflets, is set out in regulations, and all such information is approved by the Medicines Control Agency before use. Information must be consistent with the summary of product characteristics and written in clear and comprehensible terms.

The Prodigy pilot system provides general information to patients about their condition, the main treatment options and sources of further support. In general, this is intended to supplement the more detailed statutory information accompanying individual medicines. Where the Prodigy leaflets refer to specific medicines, we will ensure that the information is consistent with the statutory patient information leaflets.

NHS Numbers

Mr. Barron: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what progress has been made on the provision of a tracing service for the NHS number; and if he will make a statement. [19101]

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Mr. Horam: A tracing service for the new national health service number has been in operation since November 1996. The service is provided by the NHS central register at Southport. Since its introduction, the tracing service has been used by 159 NHS trusts to find the NHS number for 67 million patient records.

Blind and Partially Sighted People

Mr. Thurnham: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many people are registered (a) blind and (b) partially sighted. [19081]

Mr. Burns: Latest centrally available figures, as published in "Registered blind and partially sighted people at 31 March 1994, England", copies of which are available in the Library, show that at 31 March 1994, there were (a) 149,700 people registered with local authorities as blind and (b) 115,700 registered as partially sighted.

Complaints and Disciplinary Issues

Mr. Gordon Prentice: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what steps he has taken to address the criticisms by the Council of Tribunals of the way in which the new arrangements for complaints and disciplinary issues in the NHS were dealt with by his Department. [19291]

Mr. Malone: The new arrangements for complaints and discipline in the NHS were successfully introduced in April 1996 and the Council on Tribunals welcomed the separation of complaints handling from discipline issues. The complaints procedure is now more accessible,

11 Mar 1997 : Column: 168

equitable and rapid; most complaints are being resolved at local level without the need for further investigation. The disciplinary procedure enables health authorities to deal efficiently and flexibly with possible breaches of family health service practitioners' terms of service. The new arrangements are being kept under review.

Medicines Control Agency

Ms Corston: To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will list the members of the Medicines Control Agency indicating (a) the organisations which they represent, (b) if they are scientific or lay members and (c) how many are employed by, or consultants to, pharmaceutical companies. [19685]

Mr. Malone: The Medicines Control Agency is an agency of the Department of Health, all of whose staff are employees of the Department of Health on standard civil service terms and conditions. The agency has 420 staff, of whom half are scientifically qualified. None are employed by, or are consultants to, pharmaceutical companies.

Cataracts

Mr. Simon Hughes: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many patients (a) by region and (b) nationally received hospital in-patient or day care for cataracts in each of the last five years. [19318]

Mr. Horam: The latest available information for finished consultant episodes is set out in the table. Information on numbers of patients is not available centrally.

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Primary diagnosis of cataract Finished consultant episodes--cataracts, England

	1990-91		1991-92		1992-93		1993-94		1994-95
	OA	DC	OA	DC	OA	DC	OA	DC	OA	DC
Northern RHA	7,075	197	6,992	568	7,774	1,073	6,993	2,939	5,326	4,818
Yorkshire RHA	5,853	154	6,782	411	7,907	881	7,939	1,588	8,748	2,402
Trent RHA	7,308	846	8,294	974	8,245	1,148	9,585	1,613	9,606	2,567
East Anglian RHA	3,916	358	4,160	1,258	4,313	1,603	4,139	2,020	5,300	3,789
North West Thames RHA	5,422	579	6,858	1,041	6,359	1,632	5,996	2,224	4,342	2,974
North East Thames RHA	5,133	426	4,986	783	5,311	747	4,879	1,045	8,147	5,520
South East Thames RHA	6,869	671	7,374	894	8,163	1,703	8,196	2,241	7,940	3,554
South West Thames RHA	5,955	913	6,630	1,451	6,142	2,224	5,686	3,477	4,554	5,523
Wessex RHA	6,315	538	6,425	1,216	6,227	1,514	6,632	2,299	6,650	4,229
Oxford RHA	3,542	497	4,143	516	4,271	540	4,815	785	5,088	1,489
South Western RHA	6,690	856	7,905	1,276	8,064	2,015	8,100	3,589	8,647	4,697
West Midlands RHA	10,799	499	10,401	942	10,860	1,421	11,715	2,702	11,147	5,049
Mersey RHA	5,612	306	5,470	1,006	5,613	1,251	5,609	1,797	5,646	2,594
North Western RHA	6,400	1,479	9,819	2,564	10,074	2,775	9,692	3,988	10,694	9,190
SHAs	4,424	277	4,044	1,598	3,723	1,679	3,605	1,879	--	--
England	93,316	8,595	100,284	16,498	103,045	22,205	103,581	34,188	101,804	58,396
Total number of ordinary admissions and day cases	101,911		116,782		125,250		137,768			160,200

Notes:

Figures are rounded and may not total. Data in this table is grossed for both coverage and unknown invalid clinical data. Finished consultant episodes are defined as the period that a patient spends with the continuous care of a specific consultant in a specific health care provider (which may be more than one hospital within that health care provider).

Special Health Authorities (SHAs) were abolished on 1 April 1994.

OA = ordinary admissions.

DC = day cases.

Source:

Department of Health, Hospital Episode Statistics (HES).

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Oral Cancer

Mr. Simon Hughes: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many patients (a) by region and (b) nationally received hospital in-patient or day care for oral cancer in each of the past five years. [19317]

Mr. Horam: The information requested is not available in precisely the form requested. The figures given in the tables are the latest available estimated information taken from the hospital episode statistics, which are based on a count of finished consultant episodes. Since an individual patient may have more than one consultant episode in any one year, the figures do not equate to the number of patients.

Primary diagnosis: oral cancer (ICD9 codes 140-149) Estimated number of finished consultant episodes (FCEs), by ordinary admissions and day cases and region of treatment, NHS hospitals, EnglandData year 1994-95

	Ordinary admissions	Day cases	Total
Northern RHA	590	75	664
Yorkshire RHA	488	45	532
Trent RHA	726	74	800
East Anglian RHA	300	49	349
North-west Thames RHA	661	119	780
North-east Thames RHA	541	38	579
South-east Thames RHA	429	40	469
South-west Thames RHA	290	29	319
Wessex RHA	453	106	559
Oxford RHA	295	27	322
South Western RHA	408	29	437
West Midlands RHA	878	74	953
Mersey RHA	675	22	697
North Western RHA	865	221	1,086
England	7,598	948	8,547

Data year 1993-94

	Ordinary admissions	Day cases	Total
Northern RHA	639	69	708
Yorkshire RHA	648	67	715
Trent RHA	681	46	726
East Anglian RHA	294	44	338
North-west Thames RHA	414	84	499
North-east Thames RHA	488	35	522
South-east Thames RHA	406	17	423
South-west Thames RHA	319	23	342
Wessex RHA	354	90	444
Oxford RHA	249	12	261
South western RHA	412	17	429
West Midlands RHA	889	88	978
Mersey RHA	705	32	737
North Western RHA	671	134	805
SHAs	238	90	328
England	7,406	849	8,255

Data year 1992-93

	Ordinary admissions	Day cases	Total
Northern RHA	602	70	672
Yorkshire RHA	674	63	738
Trent RHA	818	41	859
East Anglian RHA	310	118	428
North-west Thames RHA	426	88	515
North-east Thames RHA	617	61	678
South-east Thames RHA	421	20	441
South-west Thames RHA	293	22	314
Wessex RHA	470	27	497
Oxford RHA	247	14	260
South Western RHA	348	19	367
West Midlands RHA	902	44	946
Mersey RHA	674	34	708
North Western RHA	526	87	613
SHAs	270	10	280
England	7,599	717	8,316

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Data year 1991-92

	Ordinary admission	Day cases	Total
Northern RHA	599	38	637
Yorkshire RHA	617	48	665
Trent RHA	775	31	807
East Anglian RHA	283	86	369
North-west Thames RHA	582	93	675
North-east Thames RHA	552	51	603
South-east Thames RHA	518	22	540
South-west Thames RHA	258	27	285
Wessex RHA	450	20	470
Oxford RHA	269	6	275
South Western RHA	377	36	413
West Midlands RHA	968	47	1,016
Mersey RHA	584	19	602
North Western RHA	792	144	935
SHAs	282	21	303
England	7,906	690	8,596

Data year 1990-91

	Ordinary admission	Day cases	Total
Northern RHA	559	21	579
Yorkshire RHA	444	48	491
Trent RHA	729	34	764
East Anglian RHA	260	43	303
North-west Thames RHA	415	29	444
North-east Thames RHA	581	24	605
South-east Thames RHA	518	19	537
South-west Thames RHA	199	30	229
Wessex RHA	351	16	367
Oxford RHA	214	5	220
South Western RHA	469	26	495
West Midlands RHA	749	25	774
Mersey RHA	567	25	592
North Western RHA	844	124	968
SHAs	84	0	84
England	6,982	468	7,450

Notes:

Figures are rounded and may not total.

Data in this table is grossed for both coverage and unknown/invalid clinical data.

Source:

Department of Health, Hospital Episode Statistics (HES).

11 Mar 1997 : Column: 171

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