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29 Oct 2002 : Column 736W—continued

Child Care Workers

Ann Winterton: To ask the Secretary for Health what steps he has taken to improve the vetting of child care workers. [75369]

Jacqui Smith: The Government are committed to improving safeguards for children. They have enacted a raft of new legislation over the last few years, including the Protection of Children Act 1999, the Criminal Justice and Court Services Act 2000 and the Care Standards Act 2000. Together these initiatives establish a coherent cross-sector scheme for identifying those people considered to be unsuitable to work with children. They also ensure that when such people have been identified they are prevented from gaining access to children through their work.

Children's Trusts

Mr. Burstow: To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will make a statement on children's trusts. [76338]

Jacqui Smith: Children's trusts provide an opportunity for delivering better services and outcomes for children and families. They will be based in local councils with power for the first time to commission health and social care. They will enable local partners to jointly plan, commission, finance—and where it makes sense—deliver services for children by putting their needs at the centre of policy. The first pilot sites will start from April 2003 and we will be seeking expressions of interest in December.

Chinese Community

Mr. Dismore: To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will make a statement on his action to support the care needs of older members of the Chinese community in London. [77630]

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Jacqui Smith The national service framework (NSF) for older people provides local National Health Service bodies and councils with a template for raising the standards of health and social care and reducing inconsistency in access and service provision for all older people. The NSF and the ongoing project, Developing services for minority ethnic older people, provides specific guidance on how the needs of minority ethnic older people, including older Chinese people, can be effectively assessed and met.

Clinical Negligence

Bob Spink: To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what policies he has to reduce the human and financial costs of clinical mistakes in hospitals. [75374]

Mr. Lammy: We have established a broad programme of work specifically to address the important issue of patient safety and reduce unintended harm to patients.

The National Patient Safety Agency, established in July 2001, is a key part of this patient safety programme. The NPSA is already beginning to have an impact on the safety of national health service patient care. The agency will establish and run a new national reporting system to record adverse events and near misses in hospitals and primary care. It will promote a culture of reporting and learning so that lessons learnt in one part of the NHS are properly shared with the whole of the health service.

We are also targeting areas of known risk to patients. Work is under way on reducing medication errors, obstetrics errors and maladministered spinal injections. We have also commissioned a programme of research into aspects of patient safety which is under way at the University of Birmingham.

Community Involvement in NHS

Paul Goggins: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what plans he has to increase community involvement in the organisation and delivery of NHS services. [75380]

Mr. Lammy: The Department will introduce new systems to build the capacity of communities and hard-to-reach groups, so they can influence the way the national health service works.

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A new national body—The Commission for Patient and Public Involvement in Health— will be established during next year. Patients' forums will be set up in every NHS trust and primary care trust, to directly involve many thousands of people in the organisation and delivery of NHS services. They will work in local communities to promote involvement in local decision-making processes by generating interest and empowering people to get involved.

In addition, the Department has launched the Community Engagement Learning Network, a major organisational development programme designed to help PCTs throughout England engage with communities, patients, the public and staff in renewing and improving health services.

Day Surgery in Hospitals

Michael Fabricant: To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will make a statement on the future of day surgery in hospitals. [75378]

Mr. Hutton: Most patients prefer day surgery as it provides fast effective care and is the least disruptive to their lives. As part of the Day Surgery Strategy, we aim to make day surgery the usual way people have their planned operations not the exception, and increase to 75 per cent. the rate of elective operations undertaken as day cases. This is underpinned by #68 million that we are providing in 2002–03 and 2003–04 to improve access and deliver choice to patients in day surgery units.

Drugs-related Deaths

Mr. Laurence Robertson: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many people have died as a result of (a) smoking, (b) alcohol and (c) drugs, in each of the last 10 years for which figures are available; and if he will make a statement. [77050]

Ms Blears: It is estimated that smoking causes 120,000 deaths in the United Kingdom each year ¹ .

Estimates of deaths from alcohol range between 5,000 and 40,000 per annum in England and Wales, reflecting the wide range of methods of calculation used in many studies. The trend data requested is not available.

The available information on drug-related deaths is shown in the table.

¹ Source: The UK Smoking Epidemic: Deaths in 1995— health education authority (comparable figures are not available for other years).

Number of deaths related to drug misuse⁽²⁴⁾, England and Wales, 1993⁽²⁵⁾ to 2000

	1993	1994	1995	1996	1997	1998	1999	2000
Deaths	864	1,002	1,100	1,247	1,302	1,459	1,568	1,662

⁽²⁴⁾ These data relate to deaths where the underlying cause of death is poisoning, drug abuse or drug dependence and where any of the substances controlled under the Misuse of Drugs Act (1971) are involved.

⁽²⁵⁾ Comparable data are not available for earlier years.

Source:

Death related to drug poisoning: England and Wales 1993–2000Health Statistics Quarterly 13, Spring 2002, Office for National Statistics;ONS database of drug-related poisonings. Available on the internet at http://www.statistics.gov.uk/downloads/theme health/HSQ13 v4.pdf

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Lynne Jones: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many drug related deaths were caused in the last five years by (a) heroin, (b) crack cocaine, (c) cocaine, (d) ecstasy, (e) cannabis, (f) alcohol, (g) solvents and (h) prescription drugs; and how many people have used NHS services to treat (i) addiction to and (ii) the adverse effects of using each of these drugs in each of the last five years. [76938]

Ms Blears: Information on deaths owing to substance abuse is shown in the table:

Numbers of deaths where selected substances were mentioned on the death certificate, England and Wales, 1996 to 2000

Drug	1996	1997	1998	1999	2000
(a) Heroin and Morphine	466	445	646	754	926
(b) and (c) Cocaine	19	39	66	88	80
(d) MDMA/ Ecstasy	16	12	16	26	36
(e) Cannabis	12	13	5	8	11

Note:

It should be noted that the figures provided are for the last five years available.

Source:

Death related to drug poisoning: England and Wales 1993–2000;Health Statistics Quarterly 13, Spring 2002, Office for National Statistics; ONS database of drug-related poisonings.

Estimates range that between 5,000 and 40,000 deaths per annum are caused by alcohol in England and Wales, reflecting the wide range of methods of calculation used in many studies: consequently the trend data requested are not available.

Information on deaths owing to volatile substance abuse is shown in the table:

Deaths Associated with Volatile Substance Abuse (VSA)

	1996	1997	1998	1999	2000
(g) VSA	78	78	80	75	64

Note:

It should be noted that the figures provided are for the last five years available.

Source:

Trends in death associated with Abuse of Volatile Substances, Report no.15, St. George's Hospital Medical School, June 2002.

Information on deaths through prescription drugs is not available centrally.

Up to March 2001, the number of drug users in treatment with drug misuse agencies and general practitioners was around 118,500. Over the two-year period from 1998–99 to 2000–01, there has been a 16 per cent. increase in the numbers of drug users accessing drug treatment services. National health service trusts provide the majority of medical treatment services, while the voluntary sector primarily provides rehabilitation services. The great majority of drug users, 87 per cent., were receiving treatment within NHS services.

Information is not available centrally as to how many people have used NHS services to treat the adverse effects of using drugs.

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