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27 Feb 2003 : Column 694W—continued
Departmental Land (Ashford)
Matthew Green: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what land has been sold by his Department in the Ashford area in the last five years. [98171]
Ms Blears: One site in Ashford, Kent has been sold by the Department over the last five years; that of Pinewood Nursing Home in 1997.
Departmental Staff
Mr. Gordon Prentice: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many people were employed in the departmental filestores in each year since 1997; how many have been transferred to the private sector; and if he will make a statement. [98856]
Mr. Lammy: The Department of Health filestore services have been contracted out since April 1996. Since that date the contractors have employed staff in the following numbers:
| 1 April to 31 March | Number employed(whole time equivalent) |
|---|---|
| 1996–97 | 5.5 |
| 1997–98 | 4.5 |
| 1998–99 | 4.5 |
| 1999–2000 | 5.5 |
| 2000–01 | 5.5 |
| 2001–02 | 6.5 |
| 2002–03 | 5.5 |
These numbers include a manager on-site two to three days a week, but do not include casual staff recruited to help out with occasional peaks of work.
No records management or filestore staff have been transferred to the private sector since 1996.
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Departmental Website
Mr. Burstow: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what the total expenditure on the Department of Health website was in each of the last five years. [95689]
Mr. Lammy: The cost of the Department's website from 1998–99 to 2002–03 is shown in the table.
| Financial Year | Hosting and maintenance (£000) | Website development (£000) | Estimated staff costs(18) (£000) | Total costs (£000) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1998–99 | 20.9 | 20 | 178.9 | 219.8 |
| 1999–00 | 54.3 | 30 | 229.4 | 313.7 |
| 2000–01 | 49.3 | 130.7 | 277.1 | 457.1 |
| 2001–02 | 73.32 | (17)245.9 | 407.6 | 726.8 |
| 2002–03 (to 01/02/03) | (17)103.36 | 46 | 426.2 | 575.5 |
Notes:
(17) This includes £16,840 in migration and set-up costs incurred on switching Internet Service Providers in June 2002.
(18) Based on agreed civil service staff costs (including salaries, common services, etc.)
The website was set up in 1996 and has grown from 100 pages to over 80,000 pages since then. The number of databases made available online has increased from one at thebeginning of 1998 to 60 in 2002.
In 2000, the Department embarked on a major redevelopment of the website in response to user feedback, the introduction of the Guidelines for UK government websites and an increase in use of the Internet as a vehicle for departmental publications. This was completed by the end of March 2002.
The website regularly receives in the region of five million hits per month and is consistently placed in the top six most-visited Government websites.
Dietary Advice
Dr. Gibson: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what progress the Government is making in increasing the average daily consumption of fruit and vegetables from three to five portions a day. [87323]
Ms Blears: National trends in fruit and vegetable consumption, since the beginning of the Five-a-Day programme in 2001, cannot as yet be fully ascertained, due to the considerable time it takes to undertake dietary surveys and their analyses. However, monitoring systems are in place. At a national level, trends in consumption will be assessed through the annual Health Survey for England, through which data on fruit and vegetables was collected for the first time in 2001.
At a local level, evaluation of five local Five-a-Day pilot initiatives—one-year interventions targeting one million people between 2000 and 2001—demonstrated that they have produced important changes in people's knowledge, access and intake of fruit and vegetables. Overall, the intervention was found to have had a positive effect in people with the lowest intakes. Those who ate less than five a day at baseline increased their intakes by one portion over the course of the study. Sixty six new local five-a-day initiatives, funded by the
27 Feb 2003 : Column 696W
New Opportunities Fund, will begin this year. A tool has been developed to ensure effective evaluation of the local Five-a-Day initiatives.
Following successful piloting, the National School Fruit Scheme is now being extended throughout England on a region by region basis. The Scheme currently reaches 425,000 children in 3,500 schools across the whole of the West Midlands and London. A tool for assessing the impact of the National School Fruit Scheme on children's diets is currently being developed.
Domestic Violence
Sandra Gidley: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what research her Department has carried out regarding the link between child physical abuse and domestic violence. [99036]
Jacqui Smith: The Department of Health's policy research programme is currently funding a research project which focuses on existing child protection practices and procedures and explores their ability to respond to children who have experienced domestic violence, or drug or alcohol misuse within their families.
In addition, Government funding has, over the last few years, been used to support the following two studies, which are now complete: A health needs and health-care assessment of a population of children resident in refuges for women victims of domestic violence (Dr Elspeth Webb, 2000), a project which focussed on the children of women who were victims of domestic violence, within the refuge setting; and Children's Needs—Parenting Capacity, the impact of parental mental illness, problem alcohol and drug use, and domestic violence on children's development (H Cleaver, I Unell and J Aldgate, 1999), a study which examined how factors such as domestic violence, alcohol and drug misuse and mental illness, may impact on children and may affect a parent's capacity to respond to their child's needs.
Drug Appraisals (NICE)
Mr. Burstow: To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will set out the way in which (a) NCCHTA, (b) TAG, (c) TAR, (d) universities, (e) his Department, (f) NICE and (g) the joint working group work together to decide which drugs NICE should appraise; and if he will make a statement. [97140]
Ms Blears: A paper describing new arrangements for selecting topics for referral to the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE), including new pharmaceuticals, was sent to interested parties at the end of last year. A copy has been placed in the Library.
Drug Dependency (Treatment)
Mrs. Helen Clark: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what targets he has set for improving the waiting times for treatment for opiate dependency (a) in prison and (b) in the community. [97645]
Ms Blears: Drug treatment services in prisons are the responsibility of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Home Department. I understand that the Prison Service has not set a specific target for improving
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the waiting times for treatment for opiate dependency in prison. All prisoners referred to the counselling, assessment, referral, advice and throughcare service should receive an initial assessment within a target of five days from the point of referral.
In December 2001, the National Treatment Agency for Substance Misuse (NTA) developed a programme to tackle the growing problem of waiting times for drug treatment in the community. As part of this process, the NTA set targets on the maximum acceptable waiting times for treatment. The targets are defined by treatment modality, not by the patient's drug of dependence. Opiate dependent patients may be receiving treatment through any of the modalities shown in the table, according to their individual clinical need.
| 2002–03 | 2003–04 | |
|---|---|---|
| In patient detoxification | 4 | 2 |
| Specialist prescribing | 6 | 3 |
| GP prescribing | 4 | 2 |
| Structured counselling | 4 | 2 |
| Day Care | 4 | 3 |
| Residential rehab | 4 | 3 |
DXA Scans
David Davis: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many DXA scans were completed in each hospital trust in 2002. [97725]
Jacqui Smith: Information on the number of dual energy X-Ray absorptiometry scans is not collected centrally.
Firefighters' Dispute
Mr. Edward Davey: To ask the Secretary of State for Health whether costs were incurred by his Department as a result of the fire strikes. [98387]
Mr. Lammy: Some minimal costs were incurred. These were contained within the Department's normal budgets which allow for contingencies of this nature.
Health Care (East Riding)
David Davis: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many nurses work in hospitals in the East Riding of Yorkshire; and how many of them are employed from an agency. [97729]
Jacqui Smith: On 12 February 2003, the following number of nurses were employed by Hull and East Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust.
| Nurses | Headcount | Whole time equivalent |
|---|---|---|
| Qualified | 2,230 | 1,927.8 |
| Unqualified | 894 | 737.9 |
There is no record of the number of agency staff employed.
Source of information:Hull and East Yorkshire NHS Trust
27 Feb 2003 : Column 698W
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