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HEALTH

Pharmacists (Reimbursement)

Mr. Todd: To ask the Secretary of State for Health on how many occasions during each of the last three years pharmacists were denied prescription reimbursement by the NHS because they had submitted forms for prescription charge exemption that had been erroneously completed by patients; and what was the estimated cost of these erroneously completed forms to pharmacists in each of those years. [149063]

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Ms Stuart: No pharmacy contractors have been denied reimbursement because they have submitted prescription forms which have been incorrectly completed by patients claiming exemption from charges.

Pharmacists are required to collect a charge in respect of each chargeable item supplied unless a declaration of entitlement to exemption or remission is completed on the prescription form by or on behalf of the patient. This has been a requirement since 1968.

Pharmacists are also required to sort forms into "exempt" and "non-exempt" groups before submitting them to the Prescription Pricing Authority (PPA) for payment. When a form is submitted as exempt from charges but without a completed declaration, it will be treated as non-exempt. Forms submitted as exempt but showing a charge are also treated as non-exempt. Forms submitted as non-exempt are treated as exempt if they bear a completed declaration. In each case these forms are processed according to the declaration, as required by law, rather than according to the group in which the pharmacist has submitted them.

A temporary concession has been introduced for prescriptions dispensed from June 2000 onwards to encourage pharmacists and their staff to improve the completion rate. Under the concession, no adjustment is made in respect of forms for patients aged less than 16 or 60 or over on which the patient's age has been printed by the prescriber, even if the declaration required by law has not been completed. In conjunction with this, information is now routinely provided to pharmacists by the PPA about the number of forms which have been submitted as exempt but treated as non-exempt; which would have been treated as non-exempt but for the concession; or have been treated as exempt when submitted as non-exempt.

Information about forms submitted as exempt without a completed declaration of exemption prior to June 2000 is not available. Information about exempt and non- exempt forms since then is in the table.

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	June	July	August	September
Items on forms submitted as exempt without a declaration	118,013	107,911	105,822	104,025
Items to which concession applied for patients under 16 or 60 and over	37,965	35,834	36,583	35,290
Charges deducted from payments--line one less line two x £6.00 (£)	480,288	432,462	415,436	412,410
Total items dispensed	45,049,254	42,314,572	43,062,881	42,518,754
Percentage of items on forms submitted as exempt without a completed declaration--line one/line four	0.26	0.26	0.25	0.24

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If previous patterns of submitting forms without declarations of exemption were similar, then adjustments to payments would have been around £7 million in 1997-98, £7.4 million in 1998-99 and £7.8 million in 1999-2000.

Older People (Services)

Mr. Burstow: To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will set out for the years (a) 2001-02, (b) 2002-03 and (c) 2003-04 how the £1.4 billion announced in the NHS plan for services for older people will be allocated; how much will be available through (i) NHS bodies and (ii) personal social services; and of the sums allocated through social services how much is made up of specific grants and how much is SSA. [150030]

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Mr. Hutton [holding answer 12 February 2001]: As stated at paragraph 15.2 of the NHS plan, from 2004 we are making available annually an additional £1.4 billion for new investment in health and social services for older people. The disposition of the funding for services to elderly people, including intermediate care and related services, within the national health service and the personal social services has been set out in two circulars, copies of which are available in the Library. They are:

Health Service Circular (2001) 01/Local Authority Circular (2001) 01; and

Local Authority Social Services Letter (2000) 13; together with a reply from my noble Friend Lord Hunt of Kings Heath to Lord Lipsey on 12 October 2000, Official Report, House of Lords, column WA51.

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Organ Donation

Mr. Hilary Benn: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many organs were offered for donation for

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each of the last 12 months for which information is available. [150100]

Mr. Denham: The information requested is in the table.

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Organs offered for transplant and 'donor'⁽⁵⁴⁾ in UK, February 2000-January 2001, by month

Month	Kidneys	Livers	Hearts	Lungs	Pancreatic	Total solid organs	Corneas	Solid organ 'donors'(54)	Cornea- only 'donors'(54)
February 2000	110	49	39	70	7	275	225	57	118
March 2000	163	77	61	122	15	438	323	84	149
April 2000	120	65	56	104	10	355	348	69	179
May 2000	116	59	48	92	17	332	347	67	181
June 2000	113	63	50	82	16	324	275	66	131
July 2000	111	65	53	104	16	349	306	68	143
August 2000	137	69	57	108	19	390	288	77	138
September 2000	85	46	42	66	8	247	276	47	141
October 2000	134	69	52	100	21	376	262	75	124
November 2000	128	60	49	102	20	359	243	68	113
December 2000	138	67	55	106	21	387	259	72	124
January 2001	136	65	56	104	18	379	278	71	136
Total	1,491	754	618	1,160	188	4,211	3,430	821	1,677

⁽⁵⁴⁾ 'Donors' here means potential donors ie they did not necessarily end up donating.

Note:

These are counts of separate whole organs offered from cadaveric donors. Some were not accepted and used and some were offered in combination (double lungs, heart/lungs) and livers in some cases were subsequently split or reduced.

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Departmental Expenditure Limit

Mr. Andy King: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what plans he has to amend the Department of Health and Food Standards Agency Departmental Expenditure Limit and Running Costs Limit for 2000-01. [151196]

Mr. Milburn: Subject to parliamentary approval of the necessary Supplementary Estimates for Class II, Votes 1 and 2, the overall Departmental Expenditure Limit for Class II, which includes the Department of Health and the Foods Standard Agency, will be increased by £196,888,000 from £45,090,755,000 to £45,287,643,000.

Of this increase the Department of Health Departmental Expenditure Limit for 2000-01 will be increased by £196,888,000 from £44,997,888,000 to £45,194,776,000. The increase is the net effect of changes to Class II, Vote 1 (Hospital, community health, family health and related services, England) of £156,025,000 made up of £74,977,000 in respect of take up of end year flexibility, (£35,217,000) for capital and (£39,760,000) for family health services as set out in Table 7 of the Public Expenditure Outturn White Paper Cm4812, published on 18 July 2000, and £82,214,000 Trust end year flexibility; transfers from Northern Ireland of £1,373,000 (£1,307,000) for Out of Area Treatments and (£66,000) for contributions to medical training costs of Royal Colleges; £144,000 from the Scottish Executive for contributions to medical training costs of Royal Colleges; £92,000 from the National Assembly for Wales for contributions to medical training costs of Royal Colleges and £88,000 from Class III, Vote 1 (Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions) for the Rough Sleepers Unit; partially offset by transfers of £512,000 to the National Assembly for Wales for Out of Area Treatments; £1,065,000 to Class XII, Vote 2 (Department of Social Security: administration) for operating costs of the Road Traffic Accident element of the Compensation

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Recovery Unit; £536,000 to Class IV, Vote 1 (Home Office administration, police, probation, immigration and other services, England and Wales) (£221,000) for Drug Action Teams Development funding and (£315,000) for Drugs Action Teams Recruitment Initiative and £750,000 to Class I, Vote 1 (Department for Education and Employment: programmes and central services) for the Institute of Psychiatry new research facilities.

An increase of £1,352,000 for Class II, Vote 2 (Department of Health, administration, miscellaneous health and personal social services, England) is the net effect of transfers (detailed below) and the take-up of £4,000,000 (running costs) end year flexibility as set out in Table 7 of the Public Expenditure Outturn White Paper Cm4812, published on 18 July 2000. Transfers of £1,106,000 from the Scottish Executive (£141,000 running costs) for reserved health bodies; £19,000 (running costs) from Northern Ireland for reserved health bodies; £459,000 from Class IV, Vote 1 (Home Office administration, police, probation, immigration and other services, England and Wales) £130,000 (running costs) for the Youth Justice Board inspections and (£329,000) for drug grants and drug related initiatives; £200,000 from Class XII, Vote 3 (Department of Social Security: administration) for the teenage pregnancy campaign; offset by net transfers of £464,000 to Class X, Vote 1 (Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food) (£1,118,000) for the BSE Inquiry, less (£654,000) for research into BSE; and £388,000 to Class 1, Vote 1 (Department for Education and Employment: programmes and central services) (£455,000) for the drug advisers project, less (£67,000) for Protection of Children's Act Tribunal costs; and transfers of £3,000,000 to Class V, Vote 1 (Lord Chancellor's Department) for start up costs for the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Services (CAFCASS) and £580,000 to Class III, Vote 1 (Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions) for the Rough Sleepers budget.

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Within the departmental DEL there is also a net transfer of £308,000 from Class II, Vote 2 (Department of Health, administration, miscellaneous health and personal social services, England) to Class II, Vote 1 (Hospital, community health, family health and related services, England) of which £500,000 is reclassified as running costs following agreement by HM Treasury that Mental Health Review Tribunal clerk costs should no longer be classified as programme costs. There is no increase in Mental Health Review Tribunal costs as a result of this change.

The Department of Health's gross Running Cost Limit will be increased by £4,790,000 from £302,490,000 to £307,280,000 as detailed above.

The external finance limit for NHS trusts has decreased by £140,242,000 from £451,000,000 to £310,758,000 comprising of a reduction in voted trust loans of £173,853,000 partially offset by a take up of £33,611,000 (non-voted) from HM Treasury for Public Finance Initiative schemes.

The external finance limit for the Medicines Control Agency has increased by £5,900,000 from £700,000 to £6,600,000 in respect of take up of end year flexibility entitlement as mentioned above.

There are no changes to the Food Standards Agency element of the DEL.

All increases will either be offset by transfers to or from other Departmental Expenditure Limits (detailed) or charges to the DEL reserve and will not therefore add to the planned total of public expenditure.

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