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Health Services (West Lancashire)

Mr. Pickthall: To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will make a statement on the level of elective admissions to the NHS in West Lancashire in the last five years. [171549]

Miss Melanie Johnson [holding answer 10 May 2004]: The information requested is shown in the table.
Count of in year elective admissions, 1998–99–2002–03.PCT code equal to West Lancashire NHS Hospital, England

2002–03	11,044
2001–02	11,551
2000–01	13,085
1999–2000	13,670
1998–99	13,076

Notes:
In Year Admissions
Between the years 2000–01 and 2001–02, a number of National Health Service trusts in the North West reclassified inpatient procedures as outpatients. This has shown itself in apparent falls in activity levels. The majority of residents served by the West Lancashire Primary Care Trust will be referred to the Southport and Ormskirk Hospital NHS Trust. During this period 3,500 admissions were reclassified from daycases to outpatients at the Southport and Ormskirk Hospital NHS Trust. An in-year admission is the first period of in-patient care under one consultant within one healthcare provider, excluding admission beginning before 1 April at the start of the datayear. Periods of care ongoing at the end of the datayear (unfinished admission episodes) are included. However, admissions do not represent the number of in-patients, as a person may have more than one admission within the year.
PCT Code
PCT codes is a derived field providing the Primary Care Trust responsible for the patient. The PCT code is derived from the GP practice with which the patient is registered (GPPRAC) if this is known, or REGGMP, PURCODE or the postcode of the patient.
Ungrossed Data
Figures have not been adjusted for shortfalls in the data (ie the data are ungrossed).
Source
Hospital Episode Statistics (HES), Department of Health.

Hip Replacement

David Davis: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what the latest average waiting time for a hip replacement operation in the East Riding of Yorkshire is. [171787]

Miss Melanie Johnson: The information is shown in the table.
Count of Finished Admissions with Mean Time Waited, 2002–03 Main operation="Hip Replacement" (OPCS-4 codes W37-W39 and W46-W48)
By PCT code (PCT of responsibilty)
NHS Hospitals, England

PCT—Primary care trust code (PCT of responsibility)	Finished admissions	Median Time waited (days)	Mean Time waited (days)
5E3East Yorkshire PCT	120	152	199
5E4 Yorkshire Wolds and Coast PCT	188	217	238
5E5 Eastern Hull PCT	78	143	201
5E6 West Hull PCT	114	84	159

Notes:
Finished admission episodes:
A finished admission episode is the first period of in-patient care under one consultant within one healthcare provider. Please note that admissions do not represent the number of in-patients, as a person may have more than one admission within the year.
PCT code:
A derived field providing the Primary Care Trust responsible for the patient. The PCTCODE is derived from the GP practice with which the patient is registered (GPPRA) if this is known, or REGGMP, PURCODE or the postcode of the patient.
Ungrossed Data:
Figures have not been adjusted for shortfalls in data (i.e. the data are ungrossed).
Source:
Hospital Episode Statistics (HES), Department of Health

IT Systems

Dr. Murrison: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what estimate his Department has made of the
 
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amount of staff time required to input data into the databases for the National Programme for Information Technology. [174106]

Mr. Hutton: The national programme for information technology (IT) is implementing a series of IT solutions to improve patient choice and the quality of patient treatment and care. Fundamental to this is the national health service care records service (CRS) that will enable patient care information to be accessed at the point of need anywhere in England. The intention is to ensure that information on a patient is captured once and used operationally across a range of care settings and in support of a care pathway. This saves time for clinicians and avoids patients having to repeat the same information over and over again as they move from department to department or clinician to clinician.

In most cases, information will be transferred automatically from existing local IT systems and Patient Administration Systems into the nationally available NHS CRS. This will be a similar process to what happens with existing systems every time there is a system refresh or upgrade.

The recording of information about patients is part of normal clinical practice, and it is not envisaged that the use of the NHS CRS will require any significant additional effort from NHS staff than with existing processes and systems.

Lung Cancer Screening

Mr. Baron: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what plans he has to develop a screening programme for lung cancer in the UK; and what assessment he has made of the possible benefits of a screening programme on the mortality rates for lung cancer. [175709]

Miss Melanie Johnson [holding answer 25 May 2004]: The National Health Service Cancer Plan stated that the government would extend and roll out new screening programmes, where it is clear that screening reduces mortality. Currently, there is no such evidence for a screening tool for lung cancer. The United Kingdom National Screening Committee (NSC), which advises Ministers on all aspects of screening policy, considered data from an American study at its meeting in March 2003 and concluded that the findings reinforced the policy not to offer screening. At the July 2003 meeting of the NSC, it was noted that a major trial is currently under way in New York and the topic will be reviewed when that trial reports. The National Cancer Research Institute—established at our request in April 2001 to co-ordinate the national drive on cancer research—has now convened a strategic planning group on lung cancer, which is due to meet for the first time in the summer.

Mesothelioma

Mr. Clapham: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many patients suffering with mesothelioma are taking part in the MSO1 drug trials; and what the first indications of the trial show. [174799]

Miss Melanie Johnson [holding answer 25 May 2004]: The MSO1 trial is funded by Cancer Research UK and is being run by the Medical Research Council clinical trials unit. The trial will look at the value of chemotherapy and active symptom control (ASC) in the
 
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treatment of patients with mesothelioma as compared to ASC alone. So far, 280 patients have entered the trial from more than 30 centres in the United Kingdom and one in Australia, but recruitment will need to continue for a further two years before there are sufficient patients to make valid comparisons.

Workforce Development Confederation

Mr. Lansley: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many staff are employed in the Workforce Development Confederation; and from where they were deployed into strategic health authorities. [173836]

Mr. Hutton: The information requested is not available. Prior to the integration of workforce development confederations (WDCs) into strategic health authorities (SHAs), staff employed by WDCs had contracts of employment with SHAs from the date SHAs were established in April 2002. Prior to this, WDC staff had contracts of employment with their host national health service organisation, which were mainly health authorities and NHS trusts. These staff have been counted in the workforce census as SHA staff in the 2002 and 2003 censuses and prior to that were counted as part of the staff in their NHS host organisation.

Information on the number of staff employed by SHAs is shown in the following table.
Hospital, public health medicine and community health services (HCHS) staff and NHS hospital and community health services: medical and non-medical staff directly employed by strategic health authorities in England as at 30 September 2003 headcount

	Strategic health authorities	All medical and dental and non-medical staff
	England	3,540
Q01	Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire	65
Q02	Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire	70
Q03	Essex	69
Q04	North West London	109
Q05	North Central London	131
Q06	North East London	163
Q07	South East London	104
Q08	South West London	91
Q09	Northumberland, Tyne and Wear	105
Q10	County Durham and Tees Valley	92
Q11	North and East Yorkshire and Northern Lincolnshire	67
Q12	West Yorkshire	82
Q13	Cumbria and Lancashire	55
Q14	Greater Manchester	169
Q15	Cheshire and Merseyside	208
Q16	Thames Valley	133
Q17	Hampshire and Isle of Wight	144
Q18	Kent and Medway	89
Q19	Surrey and Sussex	299
Q20	Avon, Gloucestershire and Wiltshire	66
Q21	South West Peninsula	114
Q22	Dorset and Somerset	103
Q23	South Yorkshire	402
Q24	Trent	139
Q25	Leicestershire, Northamptonshire and Rutland	86
Q26	Shropshire and Staffordshire	93
Q27	Birmingham and The Black Country	189
Q28	Coventry, Warwickshire, Herefordshire and Worcestershire	103

Note:
Medical staff figures do not include staff employed by other organisations even when they work in the SHA.
Source:
Department of Health Non-Medical Workforce Census
Department of Health Medical and Dental Workforce Census




 
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