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5 Jul 2004 : Column 583W—continued

General Practitioners (Murston)

Mr. Wyatt: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what plans he has for additional general practitioner surgeries in Murston; and if he will make a statement. [182271]

Ms Rosie Winterton: In line with the principles of "Shifting the Balance of Power", it is for local primary care trusts to decide whether extra surgeries are needed and if they are, where they should be located and how they should be funded in order to meet national and local priorities. Since 1 April 2004, premises growth funding has been allocated to the national health service, rather than being held centrally. This funding is for the improvement or replacement of primary care premises, whether or not through the local improvement finance trust initiative.

Generic Drugs

Bob Spink: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what the change in the cost of generic drugs was in each of the last three years; and if he will make a statement. [179407]

 
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Ms Rosie Winterton: Details of the number, net ingredient cost (NIC) and average NIC per prescription item for medicines prescribed and dispensed generically in the community in England during the period 2001–03 are shown in the table.
Prescribed and dispensed generically

	Number of prescription items (million)	NIC (£ million)	Average ingredient cost per prescription (£)
2001	297.5	1,035.4	3.48
2002	317.9	1,297.0	4.08
2003	350.1	1,694.6	4.84

The main reason for the increase in the number of generic prescriptions is that several major drugs, such as simvastatin, have recently come out of patent. The Government has reduced the price paid for some of these drugs from 1 December 2003.

Mental Health

Bob Spink: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many general practitioner referrals to mental health specialists there were in each of the last 10 years. [181063]

Ms Rosie Winterton: Information on the number of general practitioner written referral requests for a first out-patient appointment with consultant medical specialists in psychiatry in England in each of the last 10 years is shown in the table.

Information about referrals from general practitioners to other mental health specialists is not collected centrally.
Number of GP written referral requests for first out-patient appointment, mental health specialties, England Provider based

	Quarter	Mental handicap	Mental illness	Child and adolescent psychiatry	Forensic psychiatry	Psychotherapy	Old age psychiatry
1994–05	1	668	27,801	6,641	35	792	2,784
1994–05	2	462	32,756	7,205	133	793	3,642
1994–05	3	462	34,909	9,142	93	1,017	3,658
1994–05	4	800	37,788	9,406	111	951	4,319
1995–06	1	780	38,367	9,989	171	1,138	4,349
1995–06	2	725	38,795	8,593	42	1,061	5,036
1995–06	3	714	35,776	9,583	396	1,063	5,090
1995–06	4	660	41,654	11,070	67	1,165	5,671
1996–07	1	725	41,349	9,439	60	1,081	5,622
1996–07	2	622	38,864	9,086	60	1,171	5,662
1996–07	3	765	41,539	11,323	62	1,051	5,252
1996–07	4	668	42,456	10,773	97	1,201	5,865
1997–08	1	849	43,730	10,390	135	1,184	6,332
1997–08	2	864	41,691	9,195	95	1,104	6,222
1997–08	3	903	41,352	10,743	92	1,159	6,203
1997–08	4	887	42,517	11,506	83	1,314	6,763
1998–09	1	981	39,195	9,262	166	1,568	6,628
1998–09	2	1,130	39,419	8,153	81	1,221	7,027
1998–09	3	929	39,954	9,449	71	1,228	6,868
1998–09	4	1,348	41,749	10,492	91	1,332	7,799
1999–2000	1	978	38,872	9,786	75	1,333	6,900
1999–2000	2	972	38,418	7,839	89	1,168	8,153
1999–2000	3	938	37,479	8,913	76	1,282	7,323
1999–2000	4	940	40,529	9,725	79	1,414	8,060
2000–01	1	944	39,844	8,374	70	1,209	8,543
2000–01	2	1,020	38,475	7,708	71	1,271	8,684
2000–01	3	939	38,118	9,154	56	1,184	9,150
2000–01	4	1,015	40,256	8,995	55	1,179	10,863
2001–02	1	2,196	38,423	7,583	66	1,022	9,851
2001–02	2	1,068	35,536	6,538	227	1,171	9,853
2001–02	3	1,043	37,359	8,308	78	1,307	9,837
2001–02	4	972	36,894	9,077	69	1,332	10,582
2002–03	1	986	34,537	6,724	61	1,118	10,393
2002–03	2	734	35,389	6,411	88	1,348	10,148
2002–03	3	1,042	35,089	6,602	54	1,058	10,640
2002–03	4	757	34,792	6,609	26	1,049	11,405
2003–04	1	715	32,696	5,682	41	969	11,681
2003–04	2	760	32,880	5,226	56	747	11,963
2003–04	3	800	32,460	5,655	44	794	12,600
2003–04	4	1,312	32,250	5,749	47	742	13,390

Source:
Department of Health form QM08





 
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Tim Loughton: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many people are diagnosed with severe mental illness; how many are in contact with (a) secondary and (b) primary mental health services; and how many are not in contact with any mental health service. [181340]

Ms Rosie Winterton: Information is not available in the requested format.

All people of working age who are in contact with specialist mental health services have their treatment and care managed under the care programme approach. Information about service users under the care programme approach is collected at trust level.

The Department also collects hospital episodes statistics data (HES) containing diagnostic information about in-patients in national health service hospitals who have finished their hospital episodes under the care of a consultant specialist and have been discharged, transferred to another hospital or a consultant specialist or died. HES data is available at: http://www.dh.gov.uk/PublicationsAndStatistics/Statistics/HospitalEpisodeStatistics/fs/en

The Office for National Statistics has also published "Psychiatric Morbidity Among Adults Living in Private Households, 2000", which describes the prevalence of a range of mental disorders in the general household population. It also describes how people with particular disorders differ from those without any disorder on a range of factors: their background and personal characteristics, including employment and accommodation, physical health, current treatment and service use.

Better or Worse: a longitudinal study of the mental health of adults living in private households in Great Britain, an 18 month follow up of people interviewed for the 2000 survey, has been published in 2003. It showed patterns of treatment and care for those with common mental disorders across all sectors of the service. Copies of these publications are available in the Library.

NHS Dental Workforce Review

Dr. Murrison: To ask the Secretary of State for Health when the NHS dental workforce review will be published; and what the reasons are for the delay in publication. [178259]

 
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Ms Rosie Winterton: We intend to publish the dental workforce review shortly. The publication has been delayed so workforce reforms can be seen as part of the overall package of dental reform currently underway and the longer-term strategy to train a dental workforce appropriate to people's oral health needs.

NHS Direct

Mr. Hoyle: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many calls have been made to NHS Direct in (a) Lancashire, (b) the North West and (c) England in each of the last three years. [180429]

Ms Rosie Winterton: NHS Direct call data is collected nationally from each of the 22 NHS Direct sites. As the NHS Direct North West Coast site covers Lancashire, Merseyside and Cumbria, it is not possible to measure the number of calls made to NHS Direct in Lancashire.

The table shows the total number of calls made to the NHS Direct North West Coast site, the two sites located in the North West and nationally.

	2001–02	2002–03	2003–04
Lancashire (North West Coast)	327,418	340,091	375,237
The North West (North West Coast and Greater Manchester, Cheshire and Wirral)	798,016	783,782	858,671
England	5,213,062	6,318,844	6,427,321

Mr. Hoyle: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many NHS Direct call centres operate in (a) Lancashire, (b) the North West and (c) England; and where they are based. [180430]

Ms Rosie Winterton: There are four NHS Direct call centres in Lancashire; based at Preston, Chorley, Blackburn and Blackpool. There are a further seven call centres located elsewhere in the North West; based at Bolton (two), Manchester, Southport, St. Helens, Chester and Nantwich.

There are a further 35 call centres located elsewhere in England. The table shows where they are based.
 
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NHS Direct site	Call centres	Geographical coverage
Anglia	Cambridge, Ipswich, Norwich	Cambridgeshire, Norfolk and Suffolk
Avon, Gloucester and Wiltshire	Bristol	Avon, Gloucester and Wiltshire
Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire	Bedford	Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire
Birmingham, Black Country and Solihull	Dudley, Tipton, Selly Oak (two), Walsall	West Midlands
East Midlands	Nottingham	Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire
Essex	Chelmsford	Essex, London borough of Barking and Havering
Hampshire and Isle of Wight	Southampton	Hampshire and Isle of Wight
Kent, Surrey and Sussex	Caterham, Chatham	Surrey, Kent and Sussex
Midland Shires	Stafford	Staffordshire, Shropshire, Herefordshire, Warwickshire and Worcester
North and Central London	London	Barnet, Barking and Havering Enfield and Haringey Kensington, Chelsea and Westminster
North East	Newcastle	Northumberland, Tyne and Wear
North East London	Ilford	East London and City Redbridge and Waltham Forest
South East London	Dulwich	Lambeth, Southwark and Lewisham
South West London	Croydon	Croydon, Kingston and Richmond Merton, Sutton and Wandsworth
South Yorkshire and Number	Sheffield, Doncaster	South Yorkshire, North Lincolnshire, North East Lincolnshire
Tees, East and North Yorkshire	York (two), Hull, Middlesbrough	East Riding, Cleveland and North Yorkshire
Thames Valley and Northamptonshire	Milton Keynes	Northamptonshire, Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire
West Country	Exeter, Truro, Plymouth, Taunton, Ferndown	Cornwall, Devon, Dorset and Somerset
West London	Southall	Hillingdon, Brent and Harrow Ealing, Hammersmith and Hounslow
West Yorkshire	Wakefield	Calderdale and Kirklees, Leeds, Bradford, Wakefield and North Yorkshire

Bob Spink: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what the average waiting time for calls to NHS Direct to be answered were in each of the last three years. [181068]

Ms Rosie Winterton: Information on the average waiting time for calls to NHS Direct to be answered is not collected centrally.

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