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New NHS Hospitals

Dr. Richard Taylor: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many of the new NHS hospitals built under the Private Finance Initiative have incurred penalty charges by exceeding the level of bed occupancy stipulated in the NHS trusts' contracts with the private consortia providing the service. [165235]

Mr. Hutton: Hospitals are not penalised or fined for having higher bed occupancy rates. All Private Finance Initiative contracts include additional payments for higher levels of services needed when there are more patients in the hospital. Bed occupancy rates are used to measure these increases.
 
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NHS Ancillary Staff

Mr. Norman: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many (a) nursing assistants, (b) nursery nurses, (c) healthcare assistants, (d) clerical and administrative staff, (e) maintenance and works staff, (f) medical secretaries, (g) medical records officers and (h) porters are employed by the NHS. [165086]

Mr. Hutton: Separate information is not collected on the number of medical secretaries, medical records officers and porters employed in the national health service. Medical secretaries and medical records officers are included among clerical and administrative staff in clinical support and porters are in the support to doctors and nurses staff group. The available information, including a table of explanatory notes for each staff group, has been placed in the Library.

NHS Beds

Andy Burnham: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many beds there were in the NHS on (a) 1 May 1997 and (b) 1 March 2004. [158688]

Mr. Hutton [holding answer 4 March 2004]: Information on beds is not collected at individual census dates in the year. The average daily number of available beds in 1997–98 and 2002–03 is shown in the table.
Average daily number of available beds, by sector, England, 1997–98 and 2002–03

	1997–98	2002–03
All Specialties (excluding day only)	193,625	183,826
General and Acute	138,047	136,679
Acute	107,807	108,706
Geriatric	30,240	27,973
Mental illness	36,601	32,753
Learning disability	8,197	5,038
Maternity	10,781	9,356
Day only	7,125	8,544

Source:
Department of Health form KH03.

The decrease in the number of national health service beds in some sectors reflects service improvements away from in-patient stays. We are aiming to deliver as many services as possible in the most low tech and local environment with more support in peoples' homes and the community. More procedures are taking place in out-patients and community settings which used to require hospital admission. At the same time, more consultations and treatments are taking place outside hospitals in the community and being delivered by different groups of staff. General practitioners are starting to offer treatments and consultations, which were once only done by hospital consultants. Similarly, there is an increase in the range of work undertaken by nurses. Many of the changes in the way services are delivered have been supported by the Modernisation Agency and through collaboration and learning between different parts of the NHS. This redesign of services has allowed the NHS to treat more patients and offer more convenient services.

The NHS Plan did, however, recognise a need for more general and acute beds and set a target of 2,100 extra by 2004. The latest available statistics for 2002–03 showed that general and acute beds increased by 1,600
 
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to 136,679 over the previous three years. This represents over three quarters of the target set out in the NHS Plan. This is the first time general and acute bed numbers have increased in three consecutive years since records began in 1960.

NHS Dentistry

Mr. Denham: To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) what steps he plans to take to improve access to (a) NHS dentistry and (b) NHS orthodontic treatment in the Southampton Primary Care Trust area; [164118]

(2) what assessment he has made of the availability of   NHS orthodontic treatment to patients in the Southampton Primary Care Trust area; [164119]

(3) what assessment he has made of the availability of NHS dentistry to patients in the Southampton Primary Care Trust area. [164120]

Ms Rosie Winterton [holding answers 31 March 2004]:

Southampton City Primary Care Trust (PCT) has made arrangements to ensure that any patients requiring urgent dental treatment can usually be offered an appointment on the same day. For patients wishing to register with a National Health Service dentist for routine dental care there were, on 30 March 2004, four dental practices in the city accepting new NHS patients. There were also three dental practices accepting NHS orthodontic patients, although there are waiting times for these appointments. The PCT has also put in place arrangements to ensure that the more complex orthodontic cases are treated at Southampton General Hospital, which has 1.5 whole time equivalent orthodontic consultants. Southampton also has one personal dental service site in operation—the Southampton and South West Hampshire Dental Access Centre—which sees an average of 815 patients each month.

We have provided new investment totalling £90 million to NHS dentistry over the last year. £59 million will support access, and strategic health authorities (SHAs) have been advised of their shares and are working with their PCTs to address access issues. Hampshire and the Isle of Wight SHA has been allocated £1.64 million, and Southampton City PCT will receive a share of this to support its action plan to improve access to NHS dentistry in Southampton. Additionally, the PCT funds a local dental helpline, which provides information on where NHS dentistry, including orthodontics, is available locally, either for urgent or routine treatment.

Mr. Hancock: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many dentists have left the NHS, in whole or in part, to work in the private sector in each year since 1997 in (a) total, (b) NHS Trust areas covering Portsmouth and (c) NHS Trust areas covering Hampshire. [160769]

Ms Rosie Winterton: Information on the total number of dentists leaving the general dental service (GDS) or personal dental service (PDS) is shown in the table. Information is not available on the reason for leaving.

Dentists can leave the National Health Service for a variety of reasons. These include retirements, short term
 
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absence, leaving for other employment as well as dentists leaving the NHS dental services to practise wholly privately.

Few dentists leave the NHS altogether to practise privately. There are approximately 1,000, or 5 per cent. of dentists who practise wholly privately. This number includes specialists.
Number of leavers from the GDS or PDS

12 months ending September	England and Wales	Hampshire and Isle of Wight	Portsmouth City Primary Care Trust
1998	1,000	48	5
1999	1,065	63	14
2000	1,228	67	13
2001	1,256	74	12
2002	1,370	77	14
2003	1,248	67	8

Information is not available on the number of dentists who have partially left the NHS. Dentists on the GDS and PDS are mainly self-employed and are free to vary the amount of NHS work they do.

NHS Direct

Mr. Burstow: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what estimate he has made of the number of nurses NHS Direct will employ in England by 2006; and if he will make a statement. [160340]

Ms Rosie Winterton: The forecast from the latest NHS Direct capacity improvement plan estimates that NHS Direct will employ 1,550 nurses by April 2006.

Mr. Yeo: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what proportion of calls to NHS Direct resulted in the caller being advised to attend (a) accident and emergency, (b) an NHS walk-in centre and (c) a primary care surgery appointment in the last year for which figures are available. [162056]

Ms Rosie Winterton: The proportion of calls to NHS Direct that resulted in the caller being advised to attend accident and emergency, a NHS walk-in centre, and a primary care surgery appointment in the last year for which figures are available are set out in the table.

Disposition	Percentage of total calls
Accident and emergency	7.5
NHS walk-in centre	0.3
Primary care surgery appointment	9.9

Miss McIntosh: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what the target time is in which to answer calls to NHS Direct; and what the target will be after 1 April. [162262]

Ms Rosie Winterton: NHS Direct's performance is measured on a daily basis against eight service delivery targets. The service delivery target set for NHS Direct to answer calls, is 90 per cent. of calls to be answered within 30 seconds. The service delivery targets are consistent with the out-of-hours standards and they will therefore be adjusted in line with any changes to the out-of-hours accreditation standards.
 
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Miss McIntosh: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what the target for the percentage of calls to NHS Direct to be answered is; and what the target will be after 1 April. [162263]

Ms Rosie Winterton: NHS Direct's performance is measured on a daily basis against eight service delivery targets. The service delivery target for the percentage of calls to NHS Direct that should be answered is that less than 5 per cent. of callers will hang up before the call is answered. The service delivery targets are consistent with the out-of-hours standards and they will, therefore, be adjusted in line with any changes to the out-of-hours accreditation standards.

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