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5 May 2004 : Column 1622W—continued

Heart Disease and Cancer

James Purnell: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how much public funding has been spent on (a) heart disease and (b) cancer care in Stalybridge and Hyde in each of the last five years. [168770]

Helen Southworth: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what the revenue expenditure figures for NHS (a) heart disease and (b) cancer care in Warrington South was in each of the last five years. [168687]

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

Funding is allocated to primary care trusts (PCTs) on the basis of the relative needs of their populations. It is for PCTs, in partnership with strategic health authorities and other local stakeholders, to determine how best to use their funds to meet national and local priorities for improving health, tackling health inequalities and modernising services.

Jim Dobbin: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how much public funding has been spent on (a) heart disease and (b) cancer care in Heywood and Middleton in each of the last five years. [168489]

Miss Melanie Johnson: I refer the hon. Member to the response I gave to my hon. Friends the Members for Stalybridge and Hyde (James Purnell) and for Warrington South (Helen Southworth).

Radon Gas

Mr. Burstow: To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will estimate the number of cases of lung cancer in England caused by radon gas. [169712]

 
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Miss Melanie Johnson: As with all types of cancer, it is not possible to attribute individual cases of lung cancer to a particular cause. However, from the known radiation risks, the National Radiological Protection Board has calculated that exposure to radon gas causes approximately 2,500 lung cancer deaths per year in the United Kingdom.

Residence Criteria

Mr. Gibb: To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) what the NHS residence criteria are for entitlement to treatment; [169915]

(2) on what occasions NHS staff are required to ask patients to state their country of residence. [169917]

Mr. Hutton: Anyone who is ordinarily resident in the United Kingdom is entitled to receive free National Health Service treatment, subject to certain statutory charges, such as prescription charges.

General practices check details of an individual's ordinary residence or previous registration before deciding whether to accept the person as a registered patient, either on a permanent or temporary basis. This is set out in Regulations and Guidance. For hospital services, Regulations require the NHS trust providing treatment to establish whether a person is ordinarily resident or if not, whether they are exempt from charges under a number of categories of exemption or liable to be charged. Guidance issued in April 2004 makes clear that in order to establish ordinary residence all patients should be asked the same residence-based baseline questions whenever they begin a new course of hospital treatment.

Shared Service Centres

Mr. Burstow: To ask the Secretary of State for Health pursuant to the Answer of 19 April 2004, Official Report, column 268W, on shared service centres, what assessment he has made of whether these services can be rolled out more quickly. [169654]

Mr. Hutton: An assessment of whether the rollout of shared service centres can be made more quickly is being undertaken at present. Whether this is practicable will depend on the anticipated level of demand from the national health service, the potential for new centres to be opened up and the timing of when existing accounting systems become obsolete. It is anticipated a decision will be made before a preferred bidder is appointed.

Smoking

Mr. Drew: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what progress is being made in encouraging smoking cessation; and how much was allocated to each health trust for such services in the last year for which figures are available. [167858]

Miss Melanie Johnson: We are making good progress in helping smokers to stop smoking. Latest figures show that, between April and September 2003, around 129,800 people set a quit date through the national health service stop smoking services, and over 68,600, or 53 per cent., had remained quit at four week follow up.
 
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Health service circular 2002–012, issued on 18 December 2002, set out the financial allocation to NHS stop smoking services in primary care trusts for 2003–04, 2004–05 and 2005–06. A copy of the circular has been placed in the Library.

Solvent Abuse

Tim Loughton: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what research his Department has commissioned into the extent of solvent abuse by children. [169029]

Miss Melanie Johnson: Information on volatile substance abuse (VSA) among young people aged 11–15 years is collected in an annual national survey of secondary school children commissioned by the Department. Latest information is given in the statistical release, "Drug use, smoking and drinking among young people in England in 2003: headline figures", which was published on 31 March 2004.

The Department funds the Department of Public Health Sciences at St. George's Hospital in south London to collect statistics on deaths associated with the abuse of gas fuels, aerosols, glues and other solvent based products. It produces an annual statistical summary of data. The sixteenth annual report highlighting mortality statistics for 2001 was published on 21 July 2003.

The Department also funds the National Children's Bureau, which is working with 'Childline' to analyse calls to the helpline on VSA. This work will provide qualitative data on issues relating to young people's misuse of volatile substances, which will also inform policy and practice on VSA.

Tim Loughton: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what estimate he has made of the number of deaths of children caused by solvent abuse in each of the last 10 years. [169058]

Miss Melanie Johnson: Statistics, collected by St. George's Hospital Medical School on behalf of the Department, on the number of deaths of children by volatile substance abuse for the last available 10 years, are shown in the table.
Number of deaths of children under 18 yearsby volatile substance abuse

	Deaths
1992	39
1993	30
1994	21
1995	32
1996	35
1997	29
1998	16
1999	25
2000	17
2001	25

Source:
St. George's Hospital Medical School: 16th    Annual Report on Trends in Death Associated with Abuse of Volatile Substance 1971–2001—Key findings for 2001





 
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St. George's Hospital (Morpeth)

Mr. Cousins: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how much land at St. George's Hospital, Morpeth, is to be transferred to English Partnerships for housing development; and what the (a) housing capacity and (b) value of the transferred land is. [168698]

Mr. Hutton: Discussions are currently underway to finalise the value of the properties to be transferred to the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister. The area of land in St. George's Hospital which is included in the transaction is approximately 95 hectares. The housing capacity will be for determination by the new owners.

Surgical Site Infections

Mr. Burstow: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many surgical site infections there were in the NHS in (a) England, (b) each region and (c) each NHS trust in each year since 1997. [167431]

Mr. Hutton: These data are not available but aggregated data from the Health Protection Agency's voluntary surveillance system have been published in "Surveillance of surgical site infection in English Hospitals 1997–2002". Copies have been placed in the    Library. This is also available at: http://www.hpa.org.uk/infections/topics   az/hai/SSIreport.pdf.

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