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19 Apr 2004 : Column 217W—continued
Pest Infestations
Mr. Burstow: To ask the Secretary of State for Health pursuant to his answer of 10 March 2004, Official Report, column 1610W, on pest infestations, what central monitoring will occur of action area three in Winning Ways. [163564]
Mr. Hutton: Strategic health authorities will monitor overall progress in achieving the measures set out in action area three of Winning Ways—on reducing reservoirs of infection.
Additional information on specific actions will be provided by the hospital cleanliness key target, standards of cleanliness scores, the performance indicator Winning Ways—processes and procedures and the controls assurance standards.
Plasma
Mr. Burstow: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what the projected timeline is for providing fresh frozen plasma sourced outside the UK for (a) children born in March, (b) older children born since 1996 and (c) high-risk groups. [163481]
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Miss Melanie Johnson: The Government announced on 15 August 2002 that fresh frozen plasma (FFP) will be obtained from the United States for new-born babies and children born after 1 January 1996 as an added precaution against the theoretical risk of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease transmission. The National Blood Service will begin issuing imported FFP for all neonatal patients from the week commencing 29 March 2004. This will be extended to older children born on or after 1 January 1996 as soon as practicable. A commercially produced FFP product, sourced from the United States, is also available for the national health service to purchase.
The expert Advisory Committee on the Microbiological Safety of Blood and Tissues for Transplantation is considering whether to extend the provision of non-United Kingdom sourced FFP to high risk groups. There is no defined time scale at present.
Prescriptions
Mrs. Calton: To ask the Secretary of State for Health pursuant to his answer of 17 March 2004, Official Report, column 393W, on prescriptions, if he will list the sources and types of risks and threats, including fraud, identified by the security analysis evaluation made by the University of Newcastle into electronic transmission of prescriptions; and what countermeasures have been put in place. [163842]
Ms Rosie Winterton: The information was presented in a report to the Department by the Sowerby Centre for Health Informatics at the University of Newcastle entitled "Report on Security Assessment of the ETP pilots", a copy of which has been placed in the Library.
The lessons learned on fraud prevention from the earlier pilots are being taken into account in the design of the national model for the electronic transmissions of prescriptions and as part of the overall security architecture of the NHS Care Records Service.
Primary Care Trusts
Mr. Lansley: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what estimate he has made of the number of primary care trusts that plan to use NHS Direct to handle their out-of-hours calls from 1 April. [162098]
Ms Rosie Winterton: No estimate has been made of the number of primary care trusts that plan to use NHS Direct to handle out-of-hours calls from 1 April 2004.
Mr. Burstow: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what support will be given by his Department to primary care trusts who have had to sign early contracts with foundation trusts to manage risks involved with signing contracts before negotiations on activity levels have been completed. [165245]
Mr. Hutton:
The Department of Health has put in place a package of support for primary care trusts (PCTs) that will be contracting with national health service foundation trusts, including:
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Model 'template' contract documents to be adapted locally;
Bespoke training on 'Contracting with and by NHS Foundation Trusts'. Currently 253 NHS staff have attended the training course including 122 representatives from 78 PCTs; and
Access to specialist legal advice.
Prisons (Medical Access)
Mr. Burstow: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what representations he has received on ambulance and paramedic access to prisons; and if he will make a statement. [164612]
Dr. Ladyman: Ministers have received no representations on this issue. The Prison Service and the Department jointly issued a letter to prison governors and chief executives of National Health Service ambulance trusts on 22 March 2004 stating that agreed local protocols must be drawn up for rapid access to emergency paramedical services. Officials from the Department and the Prison Service are working together to look at providing central advice to high security prisons.
Private Finance Initiative
Mr. Jim Cunningham: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what analysis he has made of the effect of the Private Finance Initiative in the NHS, with particular regard to the cost of (a) services and (b) increasing capacity. [165136]
Mr. Hutton
[holding answer 1 April 2004]: The Department reviews the business cases for all major private finance initiative (PFI) projects in accordance with the Department's capital investment manual. To be approved, a business case must demonstrate that in PFI option is affordable and value for money when compared with the publicly funded alternative. National Health Service trusts are also required to monitor performance throughout the lifetime of the PFI contract.
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Since 1997, 21 major new PFI hospitals have opened and another 10 are under construction, representing capital investment in the NHS of nearly £3.5 billion.
All PFI schemes announced since the NHS Plan was published in July 2000 have resulted in increases in capacity. The 29 major schemes announced in February 2001, many of which are now in procurement, were the first to be planned from the start after July 2000 and are intended to increase NHS beds by approximately 2,900. These increases are in both acute and intermediate care beds, contributing to the targets in the NHS Plan.
Project Funding
Mr. Colman: To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) how many (a) solely state-financed and (b) public-private partnership and private finance initiative projects for which his Department is responsible have been launched in each region in each of the last 10 years; [160969]
(2) how much was spent by (a) the Government on solely state-financed projects and (b) the (i) Government and (ii) private sector on public-private and private finance initiative projects for which his Department is responsible, in each of the last 10 years, broken down by region. [160970]
Mr. Hutton: The table provides information on projects which have reached financial close. In the case of the hospital build programme only schemes with a capital value of £25 million and over are included. Further information on private finance initiative projects can be found on the Treasury website at http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/documents/publicprivate partnerships/ppp pfi stats.cfm
It is not possible to break these numbers down into regions as projects such as the national health service local improvement finance trust and treatment centres programmes cross administrative boundaries. Also, regional health authorities, NHS regional offices and directorates of health and social care have now been replaced with 28 strategic health authorities.
| NHS capital expenditure | PFI/PPP investment | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Publicly procured hospital schemes | Treatment centres | PFI hospital schemes | Treatment centres | NHS lift | ||||||
| Financial year1,2 | No. | Total capital value (£ million) | No. | Total capita value (£ million) | No. | Total capital value (£ million) | No. | Total capital value (£ million) | No. | Total capital value (£ million) |
| 1993–94 | 5 | 194 | ||||||||
| 1994–95 | 3 | 116 | ||||||||
| 1995–96 | 3 | 85 | ||||||||
| 1996–97 | 2 | 95 | ||||||||
| 1997–98 | 5 | 425 | ||||||||
| 1998–99 | 3 | 98 | 7 | 551 | ||||||
| 1999–2000 | 6 | 439 | ||||||||
| 2000–01 | 3 | 486 | 1 | 18 | ||||||
| 2001–02 | 2 | 167 | ||||||||
| 2002–03(85) | (86)23 | (86)250 | 2 | 376 | 1 | 60 | ||||
| 2003–04 | 9 | 1052 | 1 | 23 | 6 | 124 | ||||
(83) Expenditure pre 1999–2000 is on a cash basis.
(84) Expenditure figures from 1990–2000 to 2002–03 are on a Stage 1 Resource Budgeting basis (and consistent with figures in table 3.3a of Departmental Report 2003.
(85) Estimated outturn.
(86) Made up of wholly publicly procured and as part of an existing PFI scheme. The Treatment Centre programme is spread over 2 years.
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Records are not held centrally for all contracts entered into with private sector companies. This information could be provided only at disproportionate cost.
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