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Human Tissue Authority

Nick Harvey: To ask the Secretary of State for Health on what date the Retained Organs Commission will be wound up; on what date he proposes that a shadow Human Tissue Authority will be created; and what transitional arrangements he will put in place to bridge any gap between these two dates. [149379]

Ms Rosie Winterton: The Human Tissue Bill, which received its second reading on 15 January 2004, sets out plans to create a Human Tissue Authority. The intention is to establish a shadow authority, in advance of the new authority, once the Bill receives Royal Assent.

The Retained Organs Commission was scheduled to close on 31 March 2003. It was extended for a further year until 31 March 2004 to enable it to complete its work.

The aims of the Commission are primarily to oversee national health service arrangements for the return of human organs and tissue and to ensure that any returns reflect families' wishes and take place promptly and sensitively. As the Commission's support to the NHS in dealing with inquiries from families will cease, it is currently engaging with trusts and strategic health authorities (SHAs) to secure the sensitive transfer of these responsibilities to them before it closes.

The Commission also issues guidance, and advises Government on the retention and use of human organs and tissue from post-mortems. It will issue final guidance to SHAs and trusts before it closes and provide a final report to Government. Any subsequent guidance in this area will be issued by the Department of Health or by the Human Tissue Authority in due course.

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Independent Diagnostic and Treatment Centres

Mr. Burstow: To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will make it his policy to disclose information concerning the (a) financial and (b) clinical performance of independent diagnostic and treatment centres on the same basis as information collected and reported on direct NHS services. [148684]

Mr. Hutton: Providers of independent sector treatment centres will be paid a fixed price for the period of the contract to provide an agreed number of procedures. They will be expected to provide full activity and outcome information, as required for hospital episode statistics data. The Department has also developed a national, standardised set of performance indicators for independent sector treatment centres.

Mr. Burstow: To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will place in the Library copies of the performance standards set for the first wave of independent diagnostic and treatment centres. [148685]

Mr. Hutton: Performance standards for the first wave of independent sector treatment centres are part of the project agreement for the contract between national health service sponsors and providers. The performance standards are subject to continuing commercial negotiation and will be placed in the Library once commercial agreement has been reached on all projects.

Influenza

Mr. Burstow: To ask the Secretary of State for Health pursuant to his answer of 3 December 2003, Official Report, column 77W, on influenza, what steps have been taken to ensure there are adequate supplies of medication to treat cases of influenza. [142796]

Miss Melanie Johnson [holding answer 8 December 2003]: Officials are in regular contact with manufacturers to monitor the quantities of antiviral medications they have in stock.

IT Contracts

Mr. Sayeed: To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will list information technology contracts in his Department above £20 million in each of the last 10 years; what the inception date for each system was; when it became fully functional; when it became fully debugged; and what the cost of over-runs has been. [146194]

Mr. Hutton: The information technology (IT) contracts let by the Department of Health and its arms length bodies in the last 10 years in excess of £20 million are shown in the table. Costs are shown as whole life costs and may, therefore, include elements of internal costs. A number of the contracts listed are IT framework contracts which National Health Service organisations can utilise to deliver IT infrastructure and software services.

Information about when NHS systems became fully debugged and the cost of over-runs is not held centrally.

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	Contract	Whole life cost (£m)	Inception date	Fully functional
1994	(None awarded in 1994)
1995	NHSNet central framework contract with BT and Cable & Wireless	129.6	1995	7–10 year contract 1996 for BT 1997 for Cable & Wireless
	Nation-Wide Clearing Service	30.0	1996	8 year contract (basic contract period of 5 years plus option to extend for 3 years).
1996	Infrastructure Management Services Framework agreement	40.0	1996	5 year contract with Fujitsu to support DH infrastructure services, with optional extension up to 7 years
1997–99	(None awarded in 1997–99)
2000	Project Connect (formerly GPNet).	150.0	2000	6 year contract, with gradual rollout from date of contract signature in December 2000. This funding represents the cost of Wide Area Networks to connect GPs to NHSNet. In addition to this, £318 million more was committed to the provision of the necessary Local Area Networks within each GP practice. However, as this effectively involved one contract per practice, all of this money was committed in small contracts.
	Clinical Messaging	50.0	2000	7 year contract. Gradual rollout from 2000.
	NHS Direct—Clinical Decision Support Software	22.3	2000	7 year contract. The level of cash-releasing benefits means that the contract pays for itself.
2001	Microsoft software enterprise agreement	138.6	2001	3 year contract. This is a software purchase contract
	Electronic Staff Record	325.0	2001	10 year contract. Gradual rollout from 2001
2002	Shared Services Centres two pilot centres	21.0	2002	2 year contract
	NHSNet purchase of additional bandwidth	96.5	2002	5 year contract. Gradual rollout from 2002
	Email and directory services	326.2	2002	10 year contract. System scheduled to be completely rolled out by March 2003
	Dental Practice Board—reprocurement of IT systems	40.0	2003	Two related contracts, both running for 7 years—one with IBM (£31. 9m) and one with Astron (formerly Hays) (8. 1m)
	Infrastructure Management Services Framework Agreement	60	2002	7 year contract with CSC to support DH IT infrastructure services, with optional extension up to 10 years.
2003	NHS Direct intelligent phones	29.7	2003	6 year contract
	National Programme: National Electronic Booking System	64.5(core services)	October 2003	5 year contract. National rollout complete 2005. Options exist for extensions to contract length and range of services provided.
	National Programme: NHS Care Record Service (NCRS) "data spine"	620	December 2003	9 year contract plus one year optional extension.
	National Programme: NCRS, London Cluster	996(core services)	December 2003	9 year contract plus one year optional extension.
	National Programme: NCRS, North East Cluster	1,099(core services)	December 2003	9 year contract plus one year optional extension.
	National Programme: NCRS, North West and West Midlands Cluster	973(core services)	December 2003	9 year contract plus one year optional extension
	National Programme: NCRS, Eastern Cluster	934(core services)	December 2003	9 year contract plus one year optional extension
2004	National Programme: NCRS, South Cluster		Contract yetto be signed
	National Programme: New National Network (N3) infrastructure		Contract yetto be signed

Lancashire Ambulance Service

Mr. Hoyle: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many times ambulance services had 999 calls passed to them by BT operators who were unable to connect the call to the Lancashire Ambulance Service in the last 12 months. [148375]

Miss Melanie Johnson: The information requested is not held centrally.

Medical Records

Ms Walley: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what guidance was available in the (a) 1970s and (b) 1980s in respect of routine recording of myodil injections on medical records; and if he will make a statement. [148778]

Miss Melanie Johnson: We are unaware of any specific guidance available in the 1970s or 1980s on the routine recording of Myodil injections on medical records.

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Memory Clinics

Mrs. Brooke: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what information he collates on access to memory clinics in England. [150150]

Dr. Ladyman: No information is collected centrally on access to memory clinics.

Meningitis

Mr. Drew: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what progress is being made towards the introduction of a meningitis B vaccine. [148274]

Miss Melanie Johnson: No vaccine is yet available to protect against meningitis B. However, a number of candidate vaccines are being developed. The Health Protection Agency is working closely with manufacturers to ensure the prompt evaluation of the candidate vaccines as they become available. We are also monitoring developments in this area abroad.

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