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1 Mar 2004 : Column 726W—continued

Organ Donors

Mr. Carmichael: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what estimate the Government have made of the proportion of people who (a) carried organ donor cards and (b) were on the organ donor register in each of the last five years. [156619]

Ms Rosie Winterton: A public attitude research study, commissioned in 2003 by UK Transplant, found that 36 per cent., of people had, or thought they had, an organ donor card. The research was limited to England.

Not all donor card holders register on the National Health Service organ donor register. Of the total United Kingdom population, the proportion registered at year end over the last five years is as shown in the table.

Year end	Percentage of population
1999	11.9
2000	14.0
2001	15.3
2002	17.1
2003	18.6

Personal Care Costs

Mr. Burstow: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what the administration costs to (a) primary care trusts and (b) local authorities were of operating systems for (A) establishing eligibility for free nursing care and (B) means testing for personal care in the last year for which figures are available; and if he will estimate what savings could be made in these costs if personal care was made free for the elderly. [156290]

Dr. Ladyman: This information is not available centrally. Administrative cost savings resulting from the introduction of a system of free personal care for the elderly would be marginal, as primary care trusts and local councils would still need to assess the needs of

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individuals and make payments to care providers. Where accommodation is provided, residents of care homes would still require a test of their means.

Restructuring/Change Programme

Mr. David Hinchliffe: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what the current resources allocations are for (a) social care, (b) preventive health and education and (c) public health; and how they will change as a result of the departmental reorganisation. [153685]

Ms Rosie Winterton: Before the departmental reorganisation, there were 652 whole-time equivalent (WTE) staff working in the social care field (including children, older people, mental health and prison health services) within the Department. Post re-organisation, there will be 140 WTE staff representing the target number of posts planned for the new care services directorate within the Department. The figure also takes into account work transferring to other Government departments or agencies and an expected reduction of 94 WTE posts.

The departmental reorganisation will see 418 WTE posts associated with social care transfer to the National Health Service, the National Institute for Mental Health in England (NIMHE), the Department for Constitutional Affairs (in respect to the Mental Health Tribunal and the Care Standards Tribunal), the Commission for Social Care Inspection and the Department for Education and Skills (in respect to services for children).

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Before the departmental reorganisation, there were 314 WTE staff working in the public health field (including preventative health and education services) within the Department. Post re-organisation, there will be 250 WTE staff, who will work both within the newly created health improvement directorate in the Department and in public health posts planned in each of the nine regional public health areas. The post re-organisation staffing figure already takes into account the planned transfer of nine WTE posts to the Department for Education and Skills (in respect to teenage pregnancy services), and an expected reduction of 64 WTE posts.

Sexual Health

Mr. Burstow: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many teenagers were treated for sexually transmitted diseases in England in each of the last 10 years, broken down by (a) NHS region and (b) strategic health authority. [154144]

Miss Melanie Johnson: The number of teenagers treated for sexually transmitted diseases in genitourinary medicine (GUM) clinics in England from 1995 to 2002 inclusive, by National Health Service region and strategic health authority are shown in the table.

Data refer to attenders at genitourinary medicine clinics aged less than 20 years with one or more of the following diagnoses: infectious syphilis, uncomplicated gonorrhoea, uncomplicated chlamydial infection, genital herpes (first attack) and genital warts (first attack).

	1995	1996	1997	1998	1999	2000	2001	2002
Strategic health authority
Avon, Gloucestershire and Wiltshire	175	188	214	215	233	243	245	236
Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire	143	139	164	170	169	186	179	181
Birmingham and the Black Country	211	217	211	203	216	201	255	248
Cheshire and Merseyside	202	229	248	261	281	280	290	288
County Durham and Tees Valley	114	122	136	148	158	172	160	165
Coventry, Warwickshire, Herefordshire and Worcestershire	175	172	182	186	192	198	226	190
Cumbria and Lancashire	213	205	229	217	267	239	258	290
Dorset and Somerset	104	102	110	110	111	128	117	115
Essex	124	127	136	157	172	155	172	163
Greater Manchester	306	342	374	372	410	403	428	428
Hampshire and Isle of Wight	126	146	142	147	161	182	191	176
Kent and Medway	160	203	176	209	212	215	202	221
Leicestershire, Northamptonshire and Rutland	134	111	132	143	140	154	133	139
Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire	190	194	201	210	225	244	231	242
North and East Yorkshire and Northern	164	175	176	188	175	191	204	256
North Central London	149	151	163	182	181	187	217	251
North East London	199	194	196	203	216	207	220	254
North West London	252	242	254	269	286	327	315	319
Northumberland, Tyne and Wear	115	118	127	115	131	139	137	148
Shropshire and Staffordshire	173	153	178	192	194	194	237	228
South East London	208	177	181	202	211	222	219	207
South West London	107	147	140	146	175	180	181	197
South West Peninsula	123	143	155	162	170	181	173	193
South Yorkshire	156	156	168	158	170	181	178	169
Surrey and Sussex	200	236	236	245	258	270	286	309
Thames Valley	190	196	190	210	210	225	248	241
Trent	255	256	280	295	270	284	292	302
West Yorkshire	195	186	220	210	228	249	235	265
Region
East Midlands	1,974	2,098	2,589	2,562	2,589	2,992	2,852	3,162
Eastern	1,562	1,668	2,034	2,260	2,679	2,811	3,086	3,270
London	3,489	4,211	4,554	5,282	5,719	7,045	7,747	8,306
North East	1,070	1,212	1,432	1,482	1,701	1,722	1,692	1,927
North West	2,565	2,947	3,565	3,838	4,663	5,121	5,629	6,331
South East	2,165	2,736	3,078	3,549	4,095	4,527	4,510	5,072
South West	1,678	1,827	2,197	2,418	2,582	2,928	2,979	3,233
West Midlands	1,879	2,151	2,477	2,623	2,922	3,327	3,974	4,116
Yorkshire and Humberside	2,391	2,712	3,217	3,495	3,836	3,868	4,571	5,404

Source:

KC60 statutory returns from GUM clinics

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Winter Deaths

Dr. Murrison: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what progress has been made in reducing avoidable winter deaths in the elderly. [153821]

Dr. Ladyman: There are four main strands to the efforts nationally to reduce avoidable winter deaths:

Immunisation of older people against influenza and pneumococcal disease

Increasing awareness among older people of the risks of cold weather, and the benefits and other help available to keep homes warm

The national Fuel Poverty Strategy

Improving our ability to link the forecasting of cold weather with measures designed to prevent people from becoming ill, as well as to improve the ability of the health service to plan for surges in demand, especially for hospital admission.

A target for flu vaccination in those aged 65 and over has been set since the change in policy in 2000–01.

In 2000–01 the target was 60 per cent., in 2001–02 65 per cent, and in 2002–03 and 2003–04 70 per cent. Uptake achieved has been 65 per cent., 68 per cent., 69 per cent, and 71 per cent, respectively.

This year's result is an excellent achievement and exceeds our target of 70 per cent, set at the start of the campaign.

The number of people aged 65 and over receiving their flu immunisation this year was 5,781,440—over 295,000 more people than last year.

The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) has recommended extending pneumococcal immunisation to all aged 65 years and over.

The new policy is to offer immunisation with pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccine to all people aged 65 years and over. However, we are introducing the policy in stages. To start with, people aged 80 and over, who are most at risk from pneumococcal disease, will be offered the vaccine in 2003–04. They will be followed by all those aged 75 and over in 2004–05. By 2005–06 all those aged 65 and over should routinely be offered pneumococcal vaccine.

People under these ages who are at higher risk from pneumococcal disease are already recommended to receive the vaccine. This includes people who have a heart condition, chronic lung disease, diabetes mellitus, a weakened immune system due to disease or treatment, a damaged spleen or no spleen.

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We will be collecting data on the number of people receiving their pneumococcal vaccination, but this will not be available until after April 2004.

A Keep Warm, Keep Well campaign operates in England each winter. This provides free booklets for the public and special literature for health professionals; a telephone helpline, and advice on how those most in need may apply for grants (such as the Warm Front grant—a scheme providing grant for comprehensive packages of insulation and heating improvements for those on low incomes most vulnerable to cold-related ill health); advice on benefit payments; as well as the health benefits of keeping warm.

The relationship between indoor temperatures and ill health is complex, with other factors such as outside exposure and behavioural factors involved. However, the likelihood of ill health is increased by cold damp homes. Illnesses such as influenza, heart disease and strokes are all exacerbated by the cold and older people are especially vulnerable.

The Department of Health is working together with other Government Departments to reduce the number of households in fuel poverty. Good progress has already been made with the number of fuel poor households falling from approximately 5.5 million in 1996 to about 3 million in 2001 with predictions of a further reduction of 0.5 million for 2002.

Health professionals within the National Health Service have been made fully aware of fuel poverty as a potential health determinant and widely encouraged to identify and advise patients for whom cold, damp home conditions might be a health risk.

At the local level, fuel poverty is on the agenda of many health professionals in delivering fuel poverty initiatives and fuel poverty has been identified as a key priority within the Health Inequalities Programme for Action.

Her Majesty's Treasury funding was made available up to April 2003 to allow some exploratory work, led by the Met Office, to develop models to forecast workload for primary and secondary care, built in part on weather forecasting. The evaluation of this exploratory work was inconclusive. Preliminary discussions are currently underway between the NHS, the Department and the Met Office to determine next steps, and in particular whether it is possible to

refine the approaches taken to preventative interventions, targeted in time and place so as to gain maximum benefit for patients before they fall ill, and

manage NHS workload more proactively than at present, so that services, including hospitals, are better placed to manage surges in demand, particularly for hospital admission.

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