---

28 Apr 2003 : Column 284W—continued

Overmedication (Older People)

Mr. Burstow: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what assessment he has made of the overmedication of older people in NHS hospitals. [109001]

Jacqui Smith: No information is available at national level about overmedication in national health service hospitals. Implementation of the medicines management supplement of the older people's national service framework will ensure the best use of medicine for older people and will, therefore, prevent overmedication.

Parental Leave

Mr. Bercow: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many staff in his Department have used their leave entitlement under the parental leave directive since it came into force. [108414]

Mr. Lammy: The information requested is not held centrally. Responsibility for authorising and monitoring parental leave is devolved to individual management units and is treated as a personal issue between line management and staff.

The Department is committed to supporting its staff to work flexibly around their family responsibilities and has a flexible working pattern policy. This benefits the Department, as parents are able to work in an organisation where they feel supported and are able to work flexibly around their family responsibilities.

Part-time Workers

Mr. Bercow: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what assessment he has made of the impact of the part-time workers directive on staff in his Department. [109268]

28 Apr 2003 : Column 285W

Mr. Lammy: The Department of Health is committed to work-life-balance for its staff and so offers a range of flexible working patterns and actively supports staff and managers who wish to work flexibly. Part-time working is one of the ways in which the Department offers its staff flexibility. Others are job sharing, home working and working compressed hours.

As at 1 April 2003 there were 560 staff recorded as part time. This represents 11 per cent, of the total staff in post (4,933).

Patient Care (Inquiries)

Mr. Peter Duncan: To ask the Secretary of State for Health whether it is his policy that no inquiries into failures in patient care can be initiated by his Department whilst legal action is pending from patients affected. [108961]

Mr. Lammy: Inquiries set up by the Secretary of State for Health are usually in accordance with the provisions of section 2 or section 84 of the NHS Act 1977. There are no express restrictions on setting up inquiries under these sections while legal action is pending or taking place. These inquiries usually involve wider serious systemic service failures often involving a number of patients across a longer time frame. They are not normally regarded as the appropriate method for investigating an individual incident unless it is so serious as to have implications for National Health Service services more generally or raised health policy issues which have not been satisfactorily addressed before. These incidents are usually investigated under the NHS complaints procedure. Complaints made under the NHS complaints system will be suspended if the subject of the complaint and the case for legal action are the same.

Patient Transfers

Llew Smith: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many patients in each regional health authority have been (a) transferred to a private hospital or other private medical centre and (b) transferred to have medical treatment abroad as a result of staff shortages following the deployment of medical staff to Iraq; and what estimate he has made of the cost to the health service of these transfers. [108988]

Mr. Hutton: Information on the number of patients who have been treated in private hospitals or abroad rather than in National Health Service facilities as a result of staff shortages following the deployment of medical staff to Iraq has not been collected.

The main impact has been at the five Ministry of Defence hospital units (MDHUs) and the Royal Centre for Defence Medicine at the University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Trust. All these have lost significant numbers of regular service medical and nursing personnel to the conflict in the Gulf. The five MDHUs are based at the following NHS trusts:

Peterborough Hospitals

South Tees Hospitals

Plymouth Hospitals

Portsmouth Hospitals

Frimley Park Hospital

28 Apr 2003 : Column 286W

We have provided so far about 18 million to these hospitals to help offset the impact of deployments and maintain NHS work. As far as we are aware, no patients have been sent abroad as a result of reduced staffing because of conflict in the Gulf.

Of this 18 million, five million is being used to pay for an overseas orthopaedic team to be based at Portsmouth Hospitals to treat about 1000 patients at Portsmouth, Frimley Park and Plymouth Hospitals.

Personal Medical Services Regulations

Mr. Bercow: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what representations he has received about the National Health Service (Out of Hours Provision of Personal Medical Services and Miscellaneous Amendments) (England) Regulations. [107790]

Mr. Hutton: As part of the process for making these Regulations, the Department consulted key stakeholders on both the policy and on a draft of the Regulations themselves. Comments were received on the draft Regulations from the General Medical Practitioners Committee of the British Medical Association. Those comments were taken into account in finalising the Regulations, which were laid before the House on 10 January 2003.

Pharmacists

Chris Grayling: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many pharmacists will complete training in the current year; and how many have completed training in each of the past five years. [107752]

Mr. Hutton: To qualify as a pharmacist students are required to gain a pharmacy degree, successfully complete a one-year period of pre-registration practice based training and pass the registration examination. In 2001, the most recent year for which collated information is available, the intake of new students to schools of pharmacy in Great Britain was 15 per cent. higher than in 1997. The numbers of pharmacy degrees awarded by those schools over the same period are shown in the following table.

	Number
1997	1,268
1998	1,369
1999	1,567
2000	322
2001	1,239

The numbers of trainees passing the registration examination in the last five years are shown in the following table.

	Number
1998	1,188
1999	1,217
2000	1,438
2001	447
2002	1,533

These figures include overseas pharmacists who have to pass the registration examination to register in Great

28 Apr 2003 : Column 287W

Britain. The move from a three to a four-year degree in 1997 gave rise to low graduation numbers and registration examination passes in 2000 and 2001 respectively.

This year, in 2002–03, there are 1,327 United Kingdom graduates undertaking their practice based pre-registration training in Great Britain.

Physiotherapy

Mr. Laurence Robertson: To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will make a statement about the provision of physiotherapy services available on the NHS (a) nationally and (b) in Gloucestershire, with particular reference to (i) waiting times and (ii) the range of services available. [106140]

Mr. Hutton [holding answer 1 April 2003]: Primary care trusts now have the responsibility of improving the health of the community, securing the provision of high quality services and integrating health and social care locally. They have the resources to commission services and to identify the number of professional staff that they need to deliver those services. This process provides the means for addressing local needs within the health community including the provision of physiotherapy services.

Prison Doctors

Simon Hughes: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many prison doctors are suspended from duties. [109556]

Jacqui Smith: Decisions concerning suspension of doctors employed by the prison service are made locally by prison governors in accordance with prison service conduct and discipline procedures. Information on the number of prison doctors suspended from duties is not held centrally.

Simon Hughes: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many prison doctors have been dismissed in the last five years. [109557]

Jacqui Smith: Two doctors have been dismissed from the prison service in the last five years.

Simon Hughes: To ask the Secretary of State for Health pursuant to his answer of 3 March 2003, Official Report, column 890, on prison doctors, how many of those doctors not qualified to general practitioner level are working without appropriate supervision; what form supervision takes; and what guidance has been issued to prisons on the supervision of under-qualified doctors. [109558]

Jacqui Smith: There are 25 doctors who do not hold vocational training qualifications in the Prison Service, five of whom are in full-time training. Of the remaining 20, 10 are providing mental health services and 10 are working in primary care. One doctor has left the service since the answer provided on 3 March 2003.

The form of supervision provided varies dependent on the individual's needs assessed in a number of ways including interviews with post-graduate deans and interviews with the medical director in prison health.

28 Apr 2003 : Column 288W

Guidance on supervision has been issued to prisons in a number of forms, including the booklet 'Unlocking the Jargon' and direct communications from the medical director. Doctors have also been on mentorship training, have been provided with personal learning plans and will shortly be subject to appraisal equivalent to that introduced in the national health service for general practitioner principals. Further guidance on models of supervision is planned to be issued shortly.

---