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21 Oct 2002 : Column 125W—continued
Health Care (Portsmouth)
Mr. Hancock: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many residential care home places for elderly people were closed in the Portsmouth, South constituency during the last two months; and if he will make a statement. [75996]
Jacqui Smith: The information requested is not centrally available.
Care Standards Act
Tim Loughton: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many responses have been received to the consultation exercise regarding interpretation of regulations for care homes under the Care Standards Act 2000. [75518]
Jacqui Smith: As at 17 October 2002, the Department had received 51 responses to the consultation document setting out proposed revised physical environment standards for care homes for older people and younger adults. The closing date for comments is 8 November 2002.
English Standards
Tim Loughton: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what guidance has been issued by his Department to hospital trusts to ensure standards of spoken English for newly recruited nurses and doctors. [75528]
Mr. Hutton: Health Service Circular 1999/137 Employment of European Economic Area (EEA) Nationals: Ensuring Language Competency was issued on 14 June 1999. This circular clarifies the respective roles of registration authorities and employers and includes good practice guidelines to help employers ensure that they appoint staff who are able to speak and write English to an appropriate standard. Arrangements for testing the language and professional skills of non-EEA nationals are a matter for the appropriate professional regulatory body.
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Organ Donors
Tim Loughton: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many people have been registered as organ donors in each of the last five years. [75542]
Mr. Lammy: The number of people registering on the National Health Service organ donor register in each of the last five years are as follows:
- 1997–921,810
- 1998–867,257
- 1999–2,907,788
- 2000–1,237,005
- 2001–1,109,433
Operation Costs
Tim Loughton: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what the average cost to the NHS is of (a) hip replacement, (b) knee replacement, (c) heart bypass surgery and (d) cataract operations. [75547]
Mr. Hutton: The national average costs of the listed procedures in 2000–01 are as follows:
| Primary hip replacement | #4,179 |
| Primary knee replacement | #4,576 |
| Coronary Artery Bypass Graft | #5,483 |
| Cataracts | |
| —Phakeoemulsification cataract with lens implant | #583 |
| —Other cataract extraction with lens implant | #572 |
Source:
Reference Costs 2001
The costs quoted are for elective inpatient stays for the first three procedures listed. Cataract surgery is primarily performed as a day case procedure, and the costs shown for cataract extraction are based on day case activity. If any procedure requires a stay in critical care, these costs are not included in the above figures but are reported separately. The time, and therefore associated costs, spent in critical care is patient specific and is therefore excluded.
The 2001–02 figures are currently being compiled and will be available shortly.
Renal Medicine
Tim Loughton: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many consultants specialising in renal medicine were employed in the NHS in each of the last five years. [75539]
Mr. Lammy: Between Sept 1997 and March 2002, the number of consultants in renal medicine increased by 35 per cent.
The information requested is shown in the table.
| Year | Numbers |
|---|---|
| 2002 | 270 |
| 2001 | 260 |
| 2000 | 230 |
| 1999 | 210 |
| 1998 | 210 |
| 1997 | 200 |
Figures are rounded to the nearest ten
Data for 1997–2001 is at 30 September and 2002 data is at 31 March.
Source:
Department of Health medical and dental workforce census.
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Tim Loughton: To ask the Secretary of State for Health which renal units in hospital trusts in England and Wales operate at weekends. [75535]
Mr. Lammy: We do not collect this information, but it is normal practice for main renal dialysis units, and most satellite dialysis units, to dialyse patients on Saturdays.
Tim Loughton: To ask the Secretary of State for Health when he expects to publish his NSF on renal conditions. [75534]
Mr. Lammy: Advice on the renal national service framework is being developed by an external reference group in four modules covering, dialysis, transplantation, prevention and primary care, and end of life care. These will be published in due course.
Tim Loughton: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what the assessment is of his Department of the proportion of kidney failure cases linked to diabetes. [75533]
Mr. Lammy: The latest information is from the December 2001 Report from the United Kingdom renal registry covering the year 2000, copies which are available in the Library. This shows that diabetes accounted for 16 per cent. of new cases of end stage renal failure and 10 per cent. of prevalent cases.
Tim Loughton: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many people received dialysis treatment in the NHS in each of the last five years. [75537]
Mr. Lammy: The information in the table is derived from survey data commissioned by the Department for the years 1993, 1995 and 1998 and shows the prevalent patients receiving dialysis. A further survey is planned for 2002.
| England | 1993 | 1995 | 1998 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dialysis | 9,045 | 10,988 | 13,405 |
Tim Loughton: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what research is being funded by his Department into the prevalence of renal complaints amongst ethnic communities. [75532]
Mr. Lammy: We are not funding research specifically into the prevalence of renal complaints among ethnic communities although there are other research projects on related aspects of renal disease. There is already good evidence to show that the prevalence rates for most kidney diseases are three to five times higher among the Asian and African/Caribbean minority ethnic groups.
We are presently investing #0.5 million on two major publicity campaigns, and we have provided a three-year grant of #65,000 to the national kidney research fund's ''A Better Life Campaign'', all aimed at raising awareness of kidney disease among minority ethnic groups.
21 Oct 2002 : Column 128W
Tim Loughton: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what the average cost is to the NHS of providing annual dialysis treatment for patients with kidney disorders. [75538]
Mr. Lammy: The average cost data in the reference costs collection for renal dialysis is collected on a session, not a patient basis. The figures in the table are based on the four main categories currently used for analysis of these costs. The data is for the 2000–2001 financial year, and is based on data submitted by all National Health Service trusts in England.
Most haemodialysis patients dialyse three times a week although some may require fewer dialysis sessions depending on the severity of their condition. Patients on peritoneal dialysis will normally exchange fluids three of four times a day and patients using automated peritoneal dialysis will carry out exchanges at night.
| Reference Costs 2000–01: Renal Dialysis | No of Sessions | Mean Average # |
|---|---|---|
| Hospital Based Haemodialysis (including, | ||
| inpatients, outpatients and ward atttenders) | ||
| 1,276,797 | 145 | |
| Home Haemodialysis | 92,045 | 104 |
| Continuous Ambulatory Peritoneal Dialysis | ||
| (CAPD) | ||
| 3,736,733 | 21 | |
| Automated Peritoneal Dialysis (APD) | 899,800 | 18 |
Source:
Reference Costs 2001 Publication
Overseas Nurses
Tim Loughton: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what contracts have been signed by his Department to bring teams of doctors from continental Europe to work in the NHS. [75517]
Mr. Hutton: The Department does not sign contracts with overseas clinical teams. Contracts are negotiated between individual National Health Service trusts and overseas providers.
Social Workers
Tim Loughton: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many social workers have (a) been recruited, (b) left before normal retirement age, and (c) retired since the launch of his social worker recruitment campaign in 2001. [75520]
Jacqui Smith: Recruitment and retirement figures on social workers are not collected centrally.
The aims of the Department's recruitment campaign are to:
- Raise the number of people applying for social work training by 5000 by 2004.
- Inform the public about what social workers actually do.
- Make existing social workers realise that their work is valued.
The campaign is generating a lot of interest, and the provisional figures for the number of applications for social work training show that there has been an increase this year over last, the first increase in the number of applications since the mid-1990s.
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