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1 Mar 2004 : Column 717W—continued

Department Branding

Mr. Laws: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how much his Department and its predecessors spent on branding the Department between 1997–98 and 2003–04, broken down by (a) consultancy fees, (b) design and orders for new stationery, (c) website design and (d) other material featuring new logos. [154074]

Maria Eagle: Between the years 1997–98 and 2003–04, the predominant expenditure was the introduction of the new Department for Work and Pensions brand in 2001. The cost relating to this has been:

(a) consultancy: £244,792

(b) design of new stationery: £10,369 ¹

(c) costs of generating web elements: £52,643

(d) other items featuring the new logo (such as the design of signage) was: £11,663 ²

¹ The new brand was added to most other items, such as forms and stationery, during their normal updating process with existing stocks used up prior to issue.

² Signage changes for offices were made in accordance with the expectations of a machinery of government change.

Pension Funds

Mr. Miller: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (1) if he will list the pension funds that have been wound-up leaving inadequate resources to cover pension liabilities since Royal Assent to the Pensions Act 1996; [157839]

(2) which pension fund for which he has records was the first to go into wind-up with inadequate funds to meet its liabilities. [157840]

Malcolm Wicks: We are unable to provide this information. The only source of information on winding up schemes is the Pensions Schemes Registry which is administered by the Occupational Pension Schemes Regulatory Authority (OPRA). The information on windups on this database is limited and does not contain data on schemes assets and liabilities.

Poverty

Simon Hughes: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many children in each London borough were reported to be living in poverty in each year since 1995. [157280]

Mr. Pond: I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave to my hon. Friend the Member for City of York (Hugh Bayley) on 8 January 2004, Official Report, column 462W.

HEALTH

Allergy

Keith Vaz: To ask the Secretary of State for Health which NHS hospitals have special allergy units to deal with more severe cases of allergy. [156247]

Dr. Ladyman: The British Society for Allergy and Clinical Immunology (BSACI) and the British Allergy Foundation (BAF) compiled a list of National Health

1 Mar 2004 : Column 718W

Service allergy clinics in 2000 which are NHS consultant-led and based at NHS hospitals throughout the United Kingdom. The subsequent BSACI handbook, "National Health Service Allergy Clinics", published in 2001, lists 86 such clinics. There were an additional 15 clinics run by NHS consultants, who were non BSACI members, identified by the BAF.

Six of these 101 clinics offer services led by a whole-time specialist allergist. These are based in London (Guy's hospital, Royal Brompton hospital and St. Mary's hospital), Cambridge, Southampton and Leicester. These centres have expertise in all types of allergic disease, including the complex problems, and provide a comprehensive high-quality allergy service with a multidisciplinary approach.

Asbestos (Drinking Water)

Mr. Ben Chapman: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what assessment he has made of the health impact of asbestos in drinking water. [155787]

Miss Melanie Johnson: The Guidelines for Drinking Water Quality published in 1993 by the World Health Organization (the WHO Guidelines) concluded that:

"There is . . . no consistent evidence that ingested asbestos is hazardous to health and thus it was concluded that there was no need to establish a health-based guideline value for asbestos in drinking-water."

Asbestos released from drinking-water to air does not appear to contribute significantly to exposure to inhaled asbestos, and the WHO Guidelines noted that the fibres which are released are of a form which is considered to pose little health risk.

Benzodiazepines

Mr. Burstow: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what quantity of each (a) benzodiazepine and (b) antidepressant was prescribed by doctors in England in each of the last five years. [155156]

Ms Rosie Winterton: Information on the number of prescription items of benzodiazepines and antidepressants that were dispensed in the community in England since 1998 has been placed in the Library.

Mr. Grogan: To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will make a statement on his policy on the prescription of benzodiazepines. [155788]

Ms Rosie Winterton: Decisions about prescribing are the responsibility of the doctor, taking account of the patient's symptoms, the evidence base and national guidance.

Guidance based on the advice issued by the Committee on Safety of Medicines in 1988 has been made available to all health authorities in the "Guidelines for the Prevention and Treatment of Benzodiazepine Dependence" (Mental Health Foundation, 1994). Further guidance for prescribers is incorporated in the "Drug Misuse and Dependence— Guidelines on Clinical Management" (1999) and the "British National Formulary" (biannual).

The Department is planning to introduce instalment dispensing of benzodiazepines to minimise access to excessive doses.

1 Mar 2004 : Column 719W

Cosmetic Surgery

Mr. Yeo: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what plans his Department has to conduct a review of cosmetic surgery practice across England. [152572]

Dr. John Reid: Ministers announced in early 2002 that there would be a review of the effectiveness of the national minimum standards for the qualifications of cosmetic surgeons in England who were not on the specialist register of the General Medical Council and had been in practice before 1 April 2002.

In July 2003 the National Care Standards Commission (NCSC) submitted to the Chief Medical Officer an anonymised report on the inspections of 22 small cosmetic surgery practices in Inner London, and is in the process of preparing a more comprehensive report on all inspections carried out of cosmetic surgery practices in England. On receipt of this report the Department will consider, in consultation with relevant stakeholders, whether the standards are robust enough to ensure the quality of treatment.

The London report can be found on the NCSC website at www.carestandards.org.uk.

Dementia

Mrs. Iris Robinson: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what proportion of dementia sufferers were diagnosed before the age of 65. [156378]

Dr. Ladyman: There is no routine collection of information on the numbers of people diagnosed with dementia. The research quoted by the older people's national service framework in 2001 estimated that approximately 600,000 people in the United Kingdom have dementia, of whom there are about 17,000 people under the age of 65.

Dentists

Bob Spink: To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will collect information on the proportion of newly qualified dentists who go into (a) NHS and (b) private practice after training. [152440]

Ms Rosie Winterton: Newly qualified dentists intending to work in National Health Service general dental practice have first to undergo one year's vocational training. The great majority of dentists wish to take advantage of vocational training to enhance their clinical and administrative competence. Of the remainder, some dentists take posts in hospital dental

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departments, some decide to postpone or abandon a career in dentistry and others go directly into dental practices which only accept private patients. We monitor the proportion of newly qualified dentists who do not undertake vocational training.

Departmental Buildings

Mr. Laws: To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will list the buildings owned by his Department; what the latest estimated value of each building is; and if he will make a statement. [156700]

Ms Rosie Winterton: The estimated current value of the Department's administrative estate is approximately £65 million. The estate comprises the following freehold properties as shown in the table.

£ million

	Valuation
Building	Land	Buildings
85 Whitehall	0.99	1.75
79 Whitehall	14.47	25.21
Wellington House, London	7.23	15.10
Premier Mill, Nelson	0.00	0.05
Total	22.69	42.11

Glenfield Hospital

Mr. Burstow: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many in-patient beds have been available in England for patients with (a) mental health conditions and (b) learning disabilities in each year since 1997, broken down by (i) NHS region and (ii) strategic health authority. [154006]

Ms Rosie Winterton: The number of in-patient beds for patients with mental health conditions or with a learning disability are collected annually from each national health service trust and published at http://www.performance.doh.gov.uk/hospitalactivity/. Prior to 2000–01 this information was also published in "Bed Availability and Occupancy", copies of which are available in the Library.

Aggregations are included relevant to the NHS organisational structures in place at the time. It is not possible to aggregate these statistics to organisational structures that did not exist at the time. For the period 1997–98 to 2001–02 figures for available beds in the mental health and learning disabilities sectors for each NHS region are shown in table 1 and table 2. For 2002–03 figures for each strategic health authority are shown in table 3.

Table 1: Average daily number of available beds, mental health sector, 1997–98 to 2001–02

	England	Northern and Yorkshire	Trent	West Midland	NorthWest	Eastern	London	SouthEast	SouthWest
1997–98	36,601	5,222	3,780	3,243	5,030	3,460	7,300	5,160	3,406
1998–99	35,692	5,120	3,697	3,216	4,748	3,510	7,008	5,014	3,378
1999–2000	34,173	4,985	3,592	3,181	4,636	3,461	6,155	4,938	3,225
2000–01	34,214	4,887	3,754	3,191	4,499	3,471	6,401	4,849	3,163
2001–02	32,783	4,805	3,561	3,066	4,565	3,457	6,149	4,218	2,962

Source:

Department of Health form KH03

Status:

Published data

1 Mar 2004 : Column 721W

Table 2: Average daily number of available beds, learning disability sector, 1997–98 to 2001–02

	England	Northern and Yorkshire	Trent	West Midland	North West	Eastern	London	SouthEast	SouthWest
1997–98	8,197	1,419	676	987	644	1,375	569	1,527	1,000
1998–99	7,491	1,306	666	901	572	1,264	554	1,415	813
1999–00	6,834	1,228	653	641	492	1,175	554	1,385	707
2000–01	6,316	1,207	730	718	414	974	488	1,207	578
2001–02	5,694	1,180	692	674	402	794	461	1,144	347

Source:

Department of Health form KH03

Status:

Published data

Table 3: Average daily number of available beds, Strategic Health Authorities in England, 2002–03

	Org. ID	Name	Mental illness	Learning disability
2002–03			32,753	5,038
2002–03	Q01	Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire HA	1,433	350
2002–03	Q02	Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire HA	982	166
2002–03	Q03	Essex HA	998	242
2002–03	Q04	North West London HA	1,624	20
2002–03	Q05	North Central London HA	1,180	28
2002–03	Q06	North East London HA	1,285	87
2002–03	Q07	South East London HA	1,385	23
2002–03	Q08	South West London HA	846	0
2002–03	Q09	Northumberland, Tyne and Wear HA	1,421	437
2002–03	Q10	County Durham and Tees Valley HA	951	234
2002–03	Q11	North and East Yorkshire and Northern Lincolnshire HA	676	130
2002–03	Q12	West Yorkshire HA	1,535	263
2002	Q13	Cumbria and Lancashire HA	1,444	255
2002	Q14	Greater Manchester HA	1,644	17
2002–03	Q15	Cheshire and Merseyside HA	1,482	113
2002–03	Q16	Thames Valley HA	1,061	98
2002–03	Q17	Hampshire and Isle of Wight HA	894	164
2002–03	Q18	Kent and Medway HA	758	95
2002–03	Q19	Surrey and Sussex HA	1,630	537
2002–03	Q20	Avon, Gloucestershire and Wiltshire HA	1,448	93
2002–03	Q21	South West Peninsula HA	558	59
2002–03	Q22	Somerset and Dorset HA	800	225
2002–03	Q23	South Yorkshire HA	981	133
2002–03	Q24	Trent HA	1,743	281
2002–03	Q25	Leicestershire, Northamptonshire and Rutland HA	1,002	428
2002–03	Q26	Shropshire and Staffordshire HA	828	106
2002–03	Q27	Birmingham and the Black Country HA	1,446	255
2002–03	Q28	Coventry, Warwickshire, Herefordshire and Worcestershire HA	717	198

Source:

Department of Health form KH03

Status:

Published

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