You are here: Parliament home page > Parliamentary business > Publications and Records > Hansard > Commons Debates > Commons Debates by date > Commons Debates - previous sessions > Bound Volume Hansard - Written Answers
Previous Section Index Home Page
15 Oct 2004 : Column 397W—continued

HEALTH

Acute Stroke Care

Paul Holmes: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what targeted funding Chesterfield and North Derbyshire Royal Hospital NHS Trust has received for the provision of acute stroke care; and if he will make a statement. [190576]

Dr. Ladyman: The information requested is not collected centrally. Allocations of funding for particular treatments are matters for the local primary care trust.

Chiropody

Sandra Gidley: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what advice he gives to primary care trusts concerning the length of time a patient should wait between regular chiropody appointments. [190138]

Mr. Hutton: No advice has been given. This is a matter for clinicians to address at a local level.

Cleaning Contracts

Tim Loughton: To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will list hospitals in England whose primary cleaning contract is performed by in-house staff. [189438]

Mr. Hutton: The information requested has been placed in the Library. The data provided was collected during the 2003–04 patient environment action team (PEAT) programme. It lists 706 hospital sites where it was reported that cleaning was undertaken by in-house staff. Some sites reported that the responsibility for cleaning was split between in-house staff and contract cleaners and these sites are not listed as we do not hold information centrally on which is the primary contract.

The 2003–04 PEAT programme ran from December 2003 to May 2004. The arrangements for cleaning in hospitals are a matter for local managers and it is possible that some of the information provided has since changed.

Tim Loughton: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what assessment he has made on the effects on costs of cleaning contracts to (a) hospitals in England and (b) Worthing and Southlands Hospitals Trust of rises in (i) national insurance contributions and (ii) the minimum wage. [189439]

Mr. Hutton: Information is not routinely collected or held centrally on the pay element of the costs of cleaning contracts awarded to either national health service teams or external contractors.
 
15 Oct 2004 : Column 398W
 

Clinical Excellence Awards

Mr. Burstow: To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will estimate the cost to the Department of (a) clinical excellence awards and (b) higher level clinical excellence awards in the last year for which figures are available. [189260]

Mr. Hutton: This is the first year of the clinical excellence awards scheme and it is not yet known how much the Department will be spending on the awards. The advisory committee on clinical excellence awards will ratify the decisions on new awards at the forthcoming meeting in October.

Last year, 2003–04, was the final year of the distinction awards scheme and the total spent by the Department on new and existing national distinction awards was £139,673,000.

Correspondence

Mr. Sanders: To ask the Secretary of State for Health when he will reply to the letter from the hon. Member for Torbay of 26 August regarding NHS work permits. [189650]

Mr. Hutton: I refer the hon. Member to the answer given by my hon. Friend the Minister of State for Citizenship and Immigration at the Home Office (Mr. Browne) on 11 October 2004, Official Report, column 165W.

Council of Ministers

Sue Doughty: To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will make a written ministerial statement outlining the key points on the agenda for each of the Council of Ministers' meetings at which his Department is represented in advance of each meeting. [188196]

Mr. Hutton: I refer the hon. Member to the reply given by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. Straw) on 13 September 2004, Official Report, column 1451W.

Egg Freezing

Bob Spink: To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will list the hospital trusts which do not offer an egg freezing service to women who have a radical hysterectomy following cervical cancer. [190964]

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

Haemodialysis (Jersey)

Mrs. Spelman: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many patients received funding from the NHS for haemodialysis treatment in Jersey in (a) 2003–04 and (b) 2002–03. [189778]

Mr. Hutton: This information is not collected centrally. The administrative arrangements which support the Health Service Convention between the United Kingdom and the Channel Islands explicitly exclude the provision of maintenance renal dialysis treatment free of charge for temporary visitors.
 
15 Oct 2004 : Column 399W
 

Primary care trusts in England may, however, pay for treatment abroad for UK residents, but the guidelines for assumption of the costs of such treatment normally exclude holiday haemodialysis.

Healthcare Commission

Tim Loughton: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what the cost was of running the Healthcare Commission in the last year for which figures are available. [189435]

Mr. Hutton: The Healthcare Commission began operating in April 2004. The budgeted expenditure for 2004–05 is £75.5 million, funded by £4 million from private and voluntary healthcare fees and £71.5 million grant in aid.

Tim Loughton: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what the responsibilities of the Healthcare Commission are. [189436]

Mr. Hutton: The Healthcare Commission is the independent healthcare inspectorate for England. Its functions are set out in the Health and Social Care (Community Health and Standards) Act 2003.

Tim Loughton: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many reviews have been carried out by the Healthcare Commission since its inception. [189437]

Mr. Hutton: I understand from the Healthcare Commission that it has published:

Hepatitis C

Mr. Page: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what steps his Department is taking to assess the prevalence of hepatitis C in the UK population. [189820]

Miss Melanie Johnson: I refer the hon. Member to the reply I gave him on 11 October 2004, Official Report, column 144W.

The prevalence of hepatitis C in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland is a matter for the respective devolved administrations.

Hospital Closures

Mr. Boris Johnson: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many (a) community hospitals and (b) disabled units in England and Wales have closed since 1997. [190216]

Mr. Hutton: Information on hospital closures, including specialist units, ceased to be collected in 1991 following the introduction of the national health service internal market and NHS trusts.

Life Expectancy

Mr. Burstow: To ask the Secretary of State for Health pursuant to his answer of 9 September 2004, Official Report, column 1354W, on life expectancy, what the
 
15 Oct 2004 : Column 400W
 
baseline is for progress against the detailed target for life expectancy; and what progress has been made towards meeting the target. [189879]

Miss Melanie Johnson: The detailed life expectancy target is:

The baseline is the average life expectancy at birth, for males and females separately, for the three years 1995, 1996 and 1997, for the group of local authority (LA) areas identified as having the "worst health and deprivation indicators". This group of areas is identified as the LAs that are in the worst quintile for at least three of the following variables:

We are awaiting publication of the revised data for these variables and will be able to report on progress against the target on a robust basis following publication of these data.

Next Section Index Home Page