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16 Oct 2003 : Column 342W—continued

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

Mrs. Iris Robinson: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many individuals in England have been diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder over the last three years. [132469]

Dr. Ladyman: I refer the hon. Member to the reply I gave on 6 October, Official Report, column 1265W.

Diagnostic and Treatment Centres

Mr. Dobson: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what estimate he has made of (a) former and (b) seconded NHS staff who will be working in private diagnostic and treatment centres. [131908]

Mr. Hutton: The exact number of professional staff working in these new units will be finalised in the next stage of negotiations leading to contract close.

Mr. Dobson: To ask the Secretary of State for Health for what reasons the bids from (a) BUPA and (b) BMI to run private diagnostic and treatment centres were unsuccessful. [131910]

Mr. Hutton: The procurement process for independent sector treatment centres involved inviting bids from a wide range of independent health care sector organisations, which included BUPA and BMI.

The quality of bid submissions was very high and many companies, including BUPA and BMI were able to meet the stringent clinical standards requirements that had been set. The Department, along with local national health service sponsors, was also seeking examples of: additionality of staff, to avoid any disruption to the local NHS and to ensure that the

16 Oct 2003 : Column 343W

activity provided in these units was additional to existing work being handled in NHS facilities; innovative solutions in terms of methods of working and patient experience; and value for money in terms of the costs of each procedure, and the affordability of this activity for the local NHS health economy. In order to provide fairness in the evaluation process the bids for all schemes were evaluated by a team made up from central Departmental experts in procurement and clinical practice and local NHS clinicians and managers representing the sponsors of the schemes. The resulting preferred bidders and reserve bidders were therefore chosen on the basis of the criteria and BUPA and BMI were not able to demonstrate their competitiveness on enough of these to warrant their inclusion.

Mr. Dobson: To ask the Secretary of State for Health whether (a) NHS hospitals and (b) diagnostic and treatment centres will be paid more than the standard tariff for operations to reflect start-up costs they may incur. [131911]

Mr. Hutton: From this year, the Government have introduced a new financial system to provide a transparent, rules-based system for paying providers of services to national health service patients. Primary care trusts (PCTs) will commission the volume of activity required to deliver service priorities, adjusted for case-mix from a plurality of providers on the basis of a standard national price tariff, adjusted for regional variation in wages and other costs of service delivery. By 2008, all NHS providers will be required to meet tariff.

The Department is currently consulting on whether and how additional support above tariff should be provided for up-front revenue costs of new investment. However, we expect many of the contracts for new independent sector treatment centres to be at or below tariff. Where in the short-term we may initially pay slightly more than tariff to some independent sector providers, this is to cover start-up costs so that the new facilities open as quickly as possible to treat more patients, reduce waiting lists and bring additional clinical staff to treat NHS patients. In these cases, local PCTs commissioning care from these new units will not be disadvantaged.

Mr. Dobson: To ask the Secretary of State for Health whether he will require private diagnostic and treatment centres to have intensive care beds. [131912]

Mr. Hutton: Treatment centres offer high quality, pre-booked surgery and diagnosis facilities for the treatment of routine, elective national health service patients and will not be required to have intensive care beds. They will be expected to be able to deal with typical surgical problems to the same standards as NHS providers. Local trusts, primary care trusts and new providers will agree protocols for referring and transferring patients who require emergency or urgent care that cannot be provided by the treatment centre.

Diet

Chris Grayling: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what recent research the Government have commissioned into the impact on anti-social behaviour of provision of dietary supplements of vitamins and minerals. [130058]

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Miss Melanie Johnson: The Medical Research Council (MRC) has not recently funded any research into the impact of dietary supplements of vitamins and minerals on anti-social behaviour. However, the MRC does have a nutrition portfolio and spent £17 million in 2001–02. The MRC always welcomes high quality applications for support into any aspect of human health and these are judged in open competition with other demands on funding.

European Single Currency

Mr. Stephen O'Brien: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how much has been spent in each year by his Department in preparing for United Kingdom entry to the euro; how much his Department plans to spend on preparations for United Kingdom entry to the euro for each year from the current financial year up to and including 2005–06; and what estimates he has made of the total costs to his Department of changeover to the European Single Currency. [131604]

Ms Rosie Winterton: I refer the hon. Member to the response given by my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Ms. Kelly), on 14 October 2003, Official Report, column 142W.

Hospital Beds

Mr. Brady: To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) what estimate he has made of the number of patients in each of the last 12 months who have returned home following admission for in-patient treatment due to the unavailability of a hospital bed, without being discharged from hospital; [129100]

(2) what estimate he has made of the average time between an in-patient admission and the patient being allocated to a bed over the last 12 months. [129146]

Mr. Hutton [holding answer 11 September 2003]: Data are not collected on this aspect of patient care. The NHS Modernisation Agency has established an emergency services collaborative. The collaborative is working with every health community to analyse bed management processes and spread best practice. However, the Department collects quarterly data on the number of operations cancelled by hospitals for non-clinical reasons at the last minute (that is, on the day the patients are due to arrive or after arrival in hospital or on the day of their operation) or on the day of surgery (in 2002–03 only). Data for England, by national health service trust and strategic health authority level, are available in the Library and on the Department's website at www.doh.gov.uk/hospitalactivity/data requests.htm

The data collected on cancelled operations for non-clinical reasons are not broken down into the reasons for cancellation.

Mr. Amess: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what estimate he has made of the number of beds that will be freed up in NHS trust hospitals due to the creation of fast track NHS diagnostic and treatment centres. [131887]

Mr. Hutton: The independent sector treatment centre programme will free up substantial additional capacity. In some specific instances, the activity freed up in the national health service trust is lower than the numbers

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being transferred into treatment centres. This is due to the nature of the work which will replace it, for example, more complex cases, with longer lengths of stay, as well as providing capacity to improve non-elective services such as accident and emergency.

Hospital Stays (Healthy Visitors)

Dr. Evan Harris: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many overnight stays for healthy visitors in NHS beds in (a) England, (b) each region and (c) each strategic health authority there were in each of the last six years; and at what total cost. [128904]

Mr. Hutton: The Department does not hold any information relating to 'healthy visitors'.

Ministerial Travel

Mr. Don Foster: To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will list internal flights made by Ministers in his Department in 2002, including in each case the (a) cost, (b) departure location and (c) destination; and of these how many were (i) first class, (ii) business class and (Hi) economy class. [103587]

Mr. Hutton [pursuant to his answer, 19 March 2003, Official Report, c. 847W]: I regret that the previous response the hon. Member received was incorrect. The response should have read as follows.

"The tables show details of internal flights taken by Ministers in the Department of Health in 2002, according to available information".

My right hon. Friend the then Secretary of State for Health (Mr. Milburn) took the following flights.

Departurelocation	Destination	Type offlight	Class	Cost (£)
Newcastle	Belfast	Single	Premium Economy	161.30
Belfast	Heathrow	Single	Business Class	176.90
Birmingham	Newcastle	Single	Business Class	161.50

I took the following flights.

Departurelocation	Destination	Type offlight	Class	Cost (£)
London	Manchester	Return	Business Class	135.50
London	Belfast (return to Aberdeen)	Return	Business Class	502.70
Gatwick	Plymouth	Single	Business Class	159.70

My noble Friend the then Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Lord Hunt of Kingsheath), took the following flight.

Departurelocation	Destination	Type offlight	Class	Cost (£)
Edinburgh	London	Return	Business Class	332.40

My hon. Friend for Salford (Ms Blears), in her capacity as the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, took the following flights.

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Departurelocation	Destination	Type offlight	Class	Cost (£)
Heathrow	Manchester	Return	Business Class	278.90
Heathrow	Teesside	Single	Business Class	159.20
Heathrow	Manchester	Single	Business Class	135.50
Heathrow	Manchester	Single	Business Class	108.50

My hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr. Lammy), in his capacity as the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, took the following flights.

Departurelocation	Destination	Type offlight	Class	Cost (£)
Heathrow	Newcastle (returnto Gatwick)	Return	Business Class	329.30
Gatwick	Plymouth	Single	Business Class	159.70
Heathrow	Manchester	Single	Business Class	143.50
City Airport	Manchester	Return	Business Class	285.20
Heathrow	Newcastle	Return	Business Class	308.30

My hon. Friend the Member for Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), in her capacity as the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Public Health, took the following flight.

Departurelocation	Destination	Type offlight	Class	Cost (£)
Heathrow	Glasgow	Return	Business Class	332.40

My hon. Friend the Member for Salford (Ms Blears), in her capacity as the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Public Health, took the following flights.

Departurelocation	Destination	Type offlight	Class	Cost (£)
Heathrow	Manchester	Single	Business Class	108.50
Heathrow	Manchester	Single	Business Class	143.50
Heathrow	Manchester	Single	Business Class	138.50
Heathrow	Manchester	Single	Business Class	132.50
Heathrow	Manchester	Single	Business Class	148.50
Gatwick	Plymouth	Return	Business Class	320
Manchester	London	Return	Business Class	290.40
Heathrow	Manchester	Single	Business Class	143.50
Heathrow	Manchester	Return	Business Class	234.90

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