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10 May 2004 : Column 156W—continued

Cancer Patients Survey

Mr. Burstow: To ask the Secretary of State for Health pursuant to his answer of 12 February 2004, Official Report, column 1684W, on the Cancer Patients Survey, when he expects to publish the analysis. [167534]

Miss Melanie Johnson: The analysis of the Cancer Patients Survey was published on 22 April 2004. Copies of the report have been placed in the Library and on the Department's website.

Commission for Patient and Public Involvement in Health

Mr. Randall: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many forum members of the Commission for Patient and Public Involvement in Health have resigned since its inception. [167994]

Ms Rosie Winterton: Since their establishment on 1 December 2003, 662 members of Patients' Forums have resigned, which represents a turnover of 11 per cent.

Consultancy Posts

Bob Spink: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what his policy is on matching the number of consultant vacancies to the number of qualified trainees. [167061]

Mr. Hutton: We are investing in future growth in the medical workforce by increasing both medical school places and specialist registrar training places. We have already exceeded the autumn 2005 England medical school intake target of 5,894, two years early. In autumn 2003, intake was 6,030 compared with 3,749 in autumn 1997 and as at 30 September 2003, there were 14,619 specialist registrars working in the national health service, an increase of 2,709 since September 1997.

A range of national recruitment initiatives is in place to support doctors looking for consultant vacancies most suited to them. A new website at: www.doh.gov.uk/consultantjobs hosts thousands of consultant vacancies in England for domestic specialist registrars as well as potential international consultant recruits. Similarly, the national roll-out of e-recruitment, an online recruitment service for the NHS, will allow doctors to search and apply for consultant vacancies on one website. This new   service at: www.nhs.uk/jobs will streamline and modernise the process of recruitment of all NHS staff. In addition, the new consultant entry scheme facilitates the placement of specialist registrars looking for fixed term placements to known consultant vacancies.

Consultants

Mr. Lansley: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what estimate he has made of the liability in the 2003–04 accounts of NHS Trusts of the implementation of the new consultant's contract. [168906]

Mr. Hutton: Funding for the consultant contract, based on the methodology agreed with the British Medical Association during the negotiations, was allocated to primary care trusts in full in December 2002 as part of main allocations. For 2003–04, additional funding worth 0.3 per cent. of allocations was allocated to primary care trusts for the implementation of the new consultant contract. We have given clear guidance to the National Health Service about how to manage costs within the financial envelope and how to manage funding flows, but decisions on how to spend this funding are made locally.

Mr. Lansley: To ask the Secretary of State for Health   how many (a) headcount and (b) whole-time equivalent consultants there were in each year between 1979 and 1997 inclusive. [168995]

Mr. Hutton: The information requested is shown in the table.
 
10 May 2004 : Column 157W
 

Hospital, Public Health Medicine and Community Health Services (HCHS) consultants by year—numbers and whole time equivalents (wtes)—as at 30 September each year

	Number	Wte
1979	13,034	11,578.4
1980	13,276	12,045.1
1981	13,545	12,300.4
1982	13,672	12,438.9
1983	13,987	12,723.8
1984	14,259	13,016.9
1985	14,535	13,257.4
1986	14,838	13,505.7
1987	15,081	13,681.5
1988	15,385	14,052.1
1989	15,883	14,517.5
1990	16,525	15,011.4
1991	16,834	15,332.8
1992	17,279	15,695.9
1993	17,605	16,044.5
1994	18,155	16,537.5
1995	19,524	17,899.6
1996	20,402	18,602.6
1997	21,474	19,661.3

Notes:
1. Figures before 1987 exclude staff on KE payscales (district directors of public health) as data on these are unavailable before 1987.
2. In 1987 there were 68 such staff.
Source:
Department of Health medical and dental workforce census.

Continuing NHS Care

Mr. Burstow: To ask the Secretary of State for Health pursuant to his answer of 24 March 2004, Official Report, columns 914–15W, on continuing NHS care, what information will be available centrally when the review is completed on (a) the number of people who should have been eligible for continuing NHS care who had been excluded and (b) the cost of reimbursing those people. [167940]

Dr. Ladyman: In due course, the Department expects information to be available centrally on the number of people granted recompense for being wrongly denied fully funded National Health Service continuing care and the aggregate cost of that recompense.

Correspondence

Sir Michael Spicer: To ask the Secretary of State for Health when a response will be sent to the letter from the   hon. Member for West Worcestershire to the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State, Lord Warner, on 23 March. [168952]

Miss Melanie Johnson [holding answer 27 April 2004]: A reply was sent to the hon. Member on 29 April 2004.

Drug Action Teams

John Mann: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what the key performance indicators are for Drug Action Teams. [171431]

Miss Melanie Johnson: The Commission for Healthcare Audit and Inspection has included two performance indicators relating to drug action teams
 
10 May 2004 : Column 158W
 
(and drug and alcohol action teams) in their performance rating assessment of national health service primary care trusts in England in 2003–04. They are:

drug misuse treatment—increase in drug misusers accessing treatment; and

drug misuse shared care—percentage of general practitioner practices in a shared care scheme for problematic drug misusers.

Foundation Trusts

Mr. Lansley: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what the public dividend capital was at 31 March of those NHS trusts becoming NHS foundation trusts on 1 April; whether in each case this is the initial public dividend capital of those foundation trusts; and what requests he has received for the issuing of additional public dividend capital to those foundation trusts under section 11 of the Health and Social Care (Community Health and Standards) Act 2003. [165729]

Mr. Hutton [holding answer 19 April 2004]: The amount of public dividend capital (PDC) outstanding on 31 March 2004 at each of the national health service trusts that became NHS foundation trusts on 1 April 2004 is shown in the table. The information is taken from the Department's records. The amount of PDC shown in the annual accounts of these trusts is subject to audit and may differ for technical accounting reasons. The initial PDC of a NHS foundation trust is the same as the closing PDC of the predecessor NHS trust.

To date, no requests have been received from NHS foundation trusts for additional public dividend capital under section 11 of the Health and Social Care (Community Health and Standards) Act 2003.
£ million

NHS foundation trust	Amount of PDC outstanding at 31 March 2004
Peterborough and Stamford Hospitals	68,379
Basildon and Thurrock University Hospitals	50,878
Moorfields Eye Hospital	27,810
Homerton University Hospital	77,160
The Royal Marsden	46,257
Bradford Teaching Hospitals	103,245
Stockport	65,686
Countess Of Chester Hospital	45,123
Royal Devon and Exeter	124,159
Doncaster and Bassetlaw Hospitals	113,495
Total	722,193

GP Surgeries

Mr. Burstow: To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will list the maintenance backlog cost of general practitioner surgeries in the NHS in (a) England, (b) each strategic health authority and (c) each primary care trust in each year since 1997. [167413]

Mr. Hutton: There are some 10,500 general practitioner surgeries in England, of which 85 per cent. are either owner-occupied or rented by GPs, who are responsible for maintenance of their premises. The information requested is not held centrally and cannot be obtained without disproportionate cost.
 
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