Letter to the Clerk of the Committee from
the Parliamentary Clerk, Department of Health
HEALTH SELECT COMMITTEE PUBLIC EXPENDITURE
INQUIRY 2002 FOLLOW-UP INFORMATION (PE1)
Further to the Health Select Committee hearing
on 21 October the Department agreed to provide the Committee with
some additional information.
This letter sets out the Department's response
to the queries laid out below. For ease I have laid out the queries
that were raised by the committee followed by a paper with the
response to each query.
The Committee requested the following additional
information:
1. 10 years worth of EU Average, EU countries
and UK expenditure figures as a proportion of GDP.
2. Confirmation of the Department's assumption
that private sector expenditure on healthcare will remain broadly
static.
3. Information on progress around tele-health/medicine
4. Confirmation that the apparent reduction
in spending on the geriatric sector was due to the transfer of
patients with specific ailments to specialists rather than a reduction
in care for older people.
5. A copy of the letter referred to by Giles
Denham in respect of the suggestion that standards of care for
older people are falling—(Ian Philps response to article
in HSJ 19 September Page 6).
6. An assessment of the cost of agency nurses
to the hospital sector as a whole—to be drawn from annual
accounts when ready.
7. Examples of "quality" to be
measured for the NHS efficiency index.
8. Note on the proportion of consultant
to consultant referrals.
9. Proposals for allocating money in respect
of populations transferring between social services/local authority
areas.
10. How much of "other spend"
under the Programme Budget breakdown is "litigation"
and how much of that is maternity related?
11. What steps is the Dept taking to collect
data from units which do not submit "maternity tails"
data. What is being done to collect data from the private sector
and improve data collection outside hospitals?
12. What progress has been made since March
2001 with the Maternity Care Data Project? Is it on course to
achieve its aim by April 2003—to have standardised and consistent
recording of data related to maternity and childbirth, for women
and infants, within Electronic Patient Record systems in
all affected NHS organisations?
13. Check on whether information is centrally
held on mothers-to-be choosing to have caesarean sections.
14. Forecast over 30 years of interest and
capital costs of PFI schemes excluding the services element.
The responses to these requests are contained
in the paper attached.
Please let me know if I can be of any further
assistance.
4 November 2002
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