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1 May 2003 : Column 507W—continued

Cholesterol Drugs

Chris Grayling: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what plans he has to make drugs that substantially lower cholesterol available over the counter. [109088]

1 May 2003 : Column 508W

Ms Blears: The NHS Plan set out the Government's commitment to make more medicines available over the counter (OTC). The Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has been proactively encouraging the pharmaceutical industry to consider which medicines might be suitable to make more widely available as part of the MHRA's work to fulfil this commitment.

Any application to change the legal status of a particular medicine for lowering blood cholesterol will be carefully considered against the criteria for prescription-only status set out in European and United Kingdom legislation and would be subject to public consultation. Patient safety is the prime consideration and any application would be required to demonstrate its safety in use and that relevant patient and professional education issues have been adequately addressed.

Community Health Councils

Mr. Bercow: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what additional funding he has provided to local authorities in Buckinghamshire to take on responsibilities held by community health councils. [110414]

Ms Blears: Funding to support local authority scrutiny of the national health service is currently being considered within the Department and an announcement will be made shortly. We are, therefore, unable to give specific funding details for Buckinghamshire.

The £23.5 million previously made available to fund Community Health Councils (CHCs) is contributing to the much wider programme of Government initiatives to support and strengthen patient and public involvement nationally.

The functions of CHCs are being picked up by a range of mechanisms, which include patient advice and liaison services, independent complaints advocacy services (ICAS), patient's forums, the Commission for Patient and Public Involvement in Health (CPPIH) and the scrutiny of health services by local authority overview and scrutiny committees. Overall, the funding has increased greatly from the £23.5 million previously spent on CHCs. The funds being made available to the CPPIH to cover patient's forums and ICAS is £35.5 million alone.

Desumo Information and Healthcare Ltd.

Mr. Drew: To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will make a statement on the decision of the National Care Standards Commission to de-register Desumo Information and Healthcare Ltd.; and what implications this has for its provision of single vaccine cover for measles, mumps and rubella in the South-West. [109030]

Ms Blears [holding answer 14 April 2003]: The National Care Standards Commission (NCSC) registered Desumo on 22 April 2003. It had not de-registered Desumo prior to that. The NCSC processed Desumo's application as soon as it had obtained from the organisation sufficient information to enable it to be registered. In the meantime, the clinic had arranged for

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some vaccines to be administered by a national health service doctor, who was not required to be registered with the NCSC.

Diabetes

Mr. Dhanda: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what steps his Department is taking to encourage research into curing and treating diabetes. [110834]

Mr. Lammy: The main agency through which the Government supports medical and clinical research is the Medical Research Council (MRC). The MRC is an independent body which receives its grant-in-aid from the Office of Science and Technology. The MRC spent an estimated £8.9 million on research into diabetes in 2001–02.

The Department and the MRC worked together with Diabetes UK and the Wellcome Trust on the Review of Current and Future Research on Diabetes, published in October 2002. The review was intended to inform the development of future research into diabetes sponsored by the Department and the MRC, and to be of use to other agencies funding research. A Department led task group with participation from the MRC, Diabetes UK and others has been established to determine how best to take forward the proposals in the review. A copy of the review is available in the Library.

The Department also funds some direct costs of diabetes research through a variety of programmes. It also provides, through the Concordat with the MRC and equivalent arrangements with the medical charities, the considerable service support costs for all clinical research taking place within the National Health Service. The amount of such service support funding for diabetes research is being established and will be reported on at a later date. The scale of this funding, however, can be judged from the NHS national research register which gives details of over 1,600 diabetes research studies undertaken in NHS hospital trusts which receive service support.

Doctors

Chris Grayling: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many doctors have been recruited from post-graduate courses by NHS hospitals in each of the past five years. [110949]

Mr. Hutton: The Department's work force census does not collect data on numbers of doctors recruited by National Health Service hospitals from post-graduate courses.

Rev. Martin Smyth: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what discussions he has had with the (a) British Medical Association and (b) University Deans of Medicine on meeting the target of 25,000 doctors by 2008. [109736]

Mr. Hutton: My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health has regular meetings with the British Medical Association and other representative bodies of the medical profession to discuss a range of issues.

Department officials are in regular contact with the Council of Heads of Medical Schools, whose membership normally includes the Head or Dean of

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each university medical school in the United Kingdom and Colleges of the University of London with a medical school.

EU Advisory Committees(Dental Practitioner and Nursing Training)

Mr. Bercow: To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) if he will list (a) the names, titles and grades of the officials who sit on the EU Advisory Committee on the Training of Dental Practitioners, (b) the number of times, and the dates, on which it has met since January 2002, (c) the agenda items it has considered since January 2002, (d) the decisions it has made since January 2002 and (e) the means used to communicate the decisions to the House; [110286]

(2) if he will list (a) the names, titles and grades of the officials who sit on the EU Advisory Committee on Training in Nursing, (b) the number of times, and the dates, on which it has met since January 2002, (c) the agenda items it has considered since January 2002, (d) the decisions it has made since January 2002 and (e) the means used to communicate the decisions to the House. [110287]

Mr. Hutton: The Advisory Committees on Nursing and Dental Training were set up to advise the European Commission and member states on matters relating to the training of nurses responsible for general care and dentists under European Union directives guaranteeing free movement and automatic recognition of qualifications.

Each advisory committee has three members from each member state—one each from the practising profession, the education establishments and the competent authority. Three alternates are appointed on the same basis. No Government officials sit on the Committees.

The Advisory Committees have not met, had any items on their agenda, or made any decisions since January 2002. The terms of office of members have expired and the Commission has not sought further nominations.

Food Advertising

Chris Grayling: To ask the Secretary of State for Health pursuant to his answer of 25 February 2003, Official Report, column 510W, on the advertising of food, when he expects the review of research to be completed. [107722]

Ms Blears: The Food Standards Agency is expecting the report of this review to be completed and published by September 2003.

Foundation Hospitals

Vera Baird: To ask the Secretary of State for Health whether Department of Health funding for foundation hospitals will vary according to the revenue a foundation hospital receives from other sources. [108319]

Mr. Hutton: All national health service foundation trusts will be free to generate NHS income through their legally binding contracts with primary care trusts. All NHS foundation trusts will have to observe their terms

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of authorisation, including any provisions limiting the amount of income they generate from private patient work.

General Dentistry Service

Mr. Drew: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many patients have used the facilities of the General Dentistry Service in Gloucestershire in each year since its inception. [109404]

Ms Blears: The information available is for the number of adult courses of treatment carried out by the general dental service in Gloucestershire Family Health Service Authority and Gloucestershire Health Authority for the years ending March 1992 to 2002. This data is shown in the table.

General Dental Service: Number of adult courses of treatment, year ending March 1992–2002—Gloucestershire Family Health Service Authority/Health AuthorityThousands

Year ending March	Number of claims
1992	358
1993	350
1994	261
1995	244
1996	234
1997	222
1998	215
1999	219
2000	219
2001	210
2002	203

Note:

A course of treatment may involve one or more visits to the dentist. A patient may have several courses in a single year. This information is not available for previous years. Figures for children are not given because courses of treatment for children exclude courses where a payment claim is not required.

National Health Service dental services are also provided by the community dental service and the personal dental services.

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