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10 Jun 2003 : Column 842Wcontinued
Mr. Wray: To ask the Secretary of State for Health whether clause 27 of the Health and Social Care (Community Health and Standards) Bill allows for the differentiation of pay and conditions between trust and non-trust hospitals. [112828]
Mr. Hutton: National health service foundation trusts, like other NHS bodies, will have flexibility when it comes to staff pay and conditions. However, it is essential that NHS foundation trusts act in ways that are consistent with equal pay principles and that do not prejudice the interests of the wider NHS, including other NHS employers. NHS foundation trusts will be subject to the same statutory duty of partnership that applies to all NHS bodiesduty to cooperate in the exercise of their functions.
Chris Grayling: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many assaults on hospital staff in 200203 were linked to attempts to enforce no-smoking policies. [116875]
Mr. Hutton: Information on the level of assaults by type of incident is not collected centrally.
Mr. Burstow: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many nurses there were per head of population in (a) each region and (b) England in each year since 1997. [115552]
Mr. Hutton: The information requested is available in the Library. Between 1997 and 2001 the number of nurses employed in the National Health Service has increased by 31,520 and the number of qualified nurses per 1,000 population has increased from 6.6 to 7.1 in the same period. Provisional figures for September 2002 show a further increase of around 17,000 qualified nurses since September 2001.
Chris Grayling: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many nurses there were per head of population in each region in each year since 1996. [116894]
Mr. Hutton: Because of boundary changes, information on nurses per head of population by region in 1996 is not available. The available information has been placed in the Library.
Mr. Gibb: To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will make a statement on the (a) efficacy and (b) availability within the NHS of oxaliplatin. [117166]
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Ms Blears: In March 2002, the National Institute of Clinical Excellence (NICE) published recommendations on the use of oxaliplatin for the treatment of advanced bowel cancer.
NICE recommended that oxaliplatin, in combination with fluorouracil and folinic acid, should be considered for use as first-line treatment for advanced bowel cancer in patients who have metastases that occur only in the liver, which may become operable following treatment.
The national health service is now implementing NICE'S recommendations on this drug.
NICE is due to review these recommendations in April 2005.
Andrew George: To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) how much his Department spent on (a) polymerase chain reaction and (b) other DNA-identification tests in each of the last 10 years; [116853]
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Ms Blears: The Department did not fund development of any such tests until the Food Standards Agency (FSA) was established in April 2000. Since then an estimated total of £1.5 million has been spent on methods using DMA techniques to identify the presence of specific ingredients in foodstuffs. A breakdown of the amount spent per year is shown in the table. The projects have been looking at use of DNA methods to check the labelling of a wide range of foods, especially meat and fish products. All but one of these methods use polymerase chain reaction (PCR) based techniques.
The FSA is currently funding ten research projects aimed at improving PCR methodology for use in authenticity surveys and enforcement of labelling legislation. These tests are aimed at developing methods for identifying ingredients of a wide range of products, including vegetarian foods, and identifying varieties, for example of potatoes and rice.
Completedin Year | Range of foodstuffs included | No. of projects | Total cost (£s) |
---|---|---|---|
2000 | Food mixtures, meat. | 3 | 75,021 |
2001 | Meat, wine, seafood, fish, olive oil, chicken. | 6 | 423,098 |
2002 | Potatoes, rice, meat, olive and hazelnut oil. | 5 | 343,549 |
2003 | White fish, jams and yoghurts, vegetarian foods, meat, rice, potato, chicken breasts. | 10 | 725,286 (estimated) |
Andrew George: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many food samples were subjected to polymerase chain reaction tests by the Food Standards Agency in each year since the Agency was established; and what proportion of those tests identified DNA from products other than the food sample tested, broken down by category. [116855]
Ms Blears: Since the Food Standards Agency was established, it has completed three surveys using polymerase chain reaction (PCR) as the basis of checking the description or labelling of foods. The details of these surveys are shown in the table.
Date/year | Title/Purpose of study and foodstuffsampled | Number of samples collected | Number of samples containing foreign DNA | Proportion of samples containing foreign DNA (%) |
---|---|---|---|---|
December 2001 | Survey of meat content, added water and hydrolysed protein in catering chicken breasts | 68 (1 sample =10kg. Carton) | 2 samples contained pork DNA. | 3 |
January 2002 | Pilot study: Analysis of GM soya content in retail baked goods (including bread, cakes, buns and rolls). | 203 | 31 samples contained traces of GM soya, but only 3 of these contained more than 1% GM soya. | 15 (of which only1.5% above legalthreshold limit). |
March 2003 | Co-ordinated enforcement exercise on meat content, added water, and hydrolysed proteins in catering chicken breasts. | 25 | 11 samples contained pork DNA. 1 sample contained pork & beef DNA. | 48 |
Dr. Stoate: To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will urge the chief executives of primary care trusts in England to ensure that all funding earmarked for the development of primary care services is passed on to GP practices; and if he will make a statement. [112840]
Mr. Hutton: Within primary care trust (PCT) unified allocations, £315 million in 200304, £394 million in 200405 and £460 million in 200506 has been identified nationally as the minimum expected spend on primary care enhanced services.
PCTs are expected to spend at least this level of resources on primary care service providers; in particular general practitioner practices, but also other providers.
The Department has reminded primary care trusts, through the strategic health authorities, of their requirement to spend at least this level of resources in the next three years.
If the new general medical services contract is accepted by the profession, expenditure on primary care will rise from £5 billion in 200203 to £6.8 billion in 200506. There will be a gross investment guarantee that these resources will be delivered.
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Harry Cohen: To ask the Secretary of State for Health [pursuant to his answer of 14 April, Official Report, column 620W], on primary care trusts, what the population was of each of the old primary care trusts in Redbridge and Waltham Forest; and what the population is of each of the new trusts. [116747]
Mr. Hutton: The information requested is shown in the table.
Primary Care Trust | Population | |
---|---|---|
Population for 200304 under old configuration | ||
Chingford Wanstead and Woodford PCT | 118,719 | |
Redbridge PCT | 164,385 | |
Walthamstow, Leyton and Leytonstone PCT | 163,75 | |
Population for 200304 under new configuration | ||
Redbridge PCT | 218,984 | |
Waltham Forest PCT | 227,295 |
Source:Office for National Statistics census populations.
Vernon Coaker: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what steps the Government are taking to increase awareness of the symptoms of prostate cancer. [117900]
Ms Blears: We want men to know what their prostate gland is, what it does, and what can go wrong with it. However, we do not want to scare them, so we need to raise awareness in a responsible way. The Department has funded the following regarding public awareness:
section 64 grant to the Prostate Cancer Charity to improve awareness of the risks and symptoms of prostate cancer in African and Afro-Caribbean men in Britain; and
the Database of Individual Patient Experiences (DIPEx) in prostate cancer.
In addition, as part of the prostate cancer risk management programme, evidence-based primary care resource packs were sent to all general practitioners in England in September 2002 to aid them in counselling men who are worried about prostate cancer, ensuring the men make an informed choice about whether or not to have a prostate specific antigen (PSA) test.
Dr. Stoate: To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) if he will list the membership of the Prostate Cancer Advisory Group; [117414]
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Ms Blears: The prostate cancer advisory group is chaired by Professor Mike Richards and the members are:
John Neate, Prostate Cancer Charity;
Alan George, Coalition Against Prostate Cancer;
Mr. Mark Fordham, Urologist;
Mr. Roger Kochelbergh, Urologist;
Mr. John Anderson, Urologist;
Mr. David Gillatt, Urologist;
Amanda Baxter, Cancer Nurse at the Royal Marsden;
Martin Ledwick, Cancer Nurse with CancerBACUP;
Dr. Ian Banks, GP;
Dr. Mike Kirby, GP;
Professor Peter Armstrong, Radiologist at St. Bartholomew's;
Dr. Pat Harnden, Pathologist;
Dr. Chris Parker, Oncologist;
Dr. Heather Payne, Oncologist;
Dr. Dan Ash, President of the Royal College of Radiologists;
Dr. Noel Clarke, Oncologist;
Dr. Jane Melia, Cancer Screening Evaluation Unit;
Professor Colin Cooper, Researcher at the Institute of Cancer Research;
Professor David Neal, Research;
Tim Elliott, Department of Health, Cancer Policy Team, Secretariat;
Dr. Helen Cambell, NHS R&D Programme;
Dr. Graham Cadwallader, National Cancer Research Institute; and
Julietta Patnick, NHS Cancer Screening Programmes.
to advise on future policy programmes and priorities to tackle prostate cancer, including the implementation of the National Institute for Clinical Excellence guidance on improving outcomes in urological cancers, the assessment of future resource needs and the improvement of information sharing on all aspects of prostate cancer;
to advise on future public awareness programmes on prostate cancer;
to advise on future research priorities and the implications of research results for policy on prostate cancer; and
to consider and advise as appropriate on the development of the prostate cancer risk management programme (PCRMP), taking on board advice from the PCRMP scientific reference group.
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