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Police Cells

Harry Cohen: To ask the Secretary of State for Health whether a police cell is deemed to be a place of safety for individuals with mental illness; and if he will make a statement. [208738]

Ms Rosie Winterton: In certain circumstances, people who are believed to be suffering from mental disorder may be removed to a place of safety under Part 10 of the Mental Health Act 1983. The Act defines a place of safety for these purposes as including a police station. The identification of a preferred place of safety is a matter for local agreement, but the Mental Health Act Code of Practice states that, as a general rule, it is preferable for a person thought to be suffering from mental disorder to be detained in a hospital rather than a police station.
 
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Primary Care Trusts

Sandra Gidley: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what guidance he has given to primary care trusts on providing health services for prisons; and what resources have been provided for this purpose. [209656]

Dr. Ladyman: On 1 April 2003, funding responsibility for health services in the publicly run prisons in England was transferred from the Home Office to the Department. From 1 April 2004, at the beginning of a staged process, 18 national health service primary care trusts (PCTs) assumed commissioning responsibility for health services in 34 prisons. By April 2006, that commissioning responsibility will be fully devolved to PCTs and, in some cases, the PCT will also be the health care provider. Prisons and their NHS partners are now expected to work together to determine how best to meet prisoners' health needs. The Government are committing significant additional resources to facilitate the transfer of commissioning responsibility to the NHS. Revenue investment will have risen by over £40 million a year by 2005–06, an increase of more than a third over the 2002–03 baseline. The Prison Service is investing around £20 million a year over the same period to rebuild and refurbish prison health care facilities.

Policy development advice and support is available from the central prison health team and also the regional prison health leads, whose roles will become integrated in strategic health authorities after 2006. Additionally, there is a learning network, facilitated by the university of Birmingham, where health care staff and PCT
 
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commissioners are encouraged to share good practice and participate in learning sets and themed workshops. National and local guidance documents are available on the internet and distributed through local channels.

Prostate Cancer

Simon Hughes: To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) what his Department's publicity budget for prostate cancer awareness is in the current year; what his Department's expenditure on prostate cancer awareness was in each of the last six years; and if he will make a statement; [207903]

Sir Nicholas Winterton: To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) what steps his Department is taking to increase public awareness of (a) detection, (b) diagnosis and (c) treatment of prostate cancer; [208408]

(2) what steps his Department is taking to increase clinical knowledge of prostate cancer amongst (a) general practitioners and (b) other health professionals; [208409]

(3) what progress has been made in (a) detection and (b) treatment of prostate cancer since 1997; [208411]

Miss Melanie Johnson: The national health service prostate cancer programme was launched in September 2000 and set out the Government's commitment to improve early detection of prostate cancer, to improve treatment and care for prostate cancer patients and to enhance research into prostate cancer. Since the launch, significant progress has been made.

The prostate cancer risk management programme (PCRMP) has been set up to ensure that all men considering a test for prostate cancer are given information on the benefits, limitations and risks associated with having a prostate specific antigen (PSA) test.

We have issued clinical best practice so that PSA testing is performed to an explicit quality standard and that there is a systematic and standardised follow-up for those men with a high PSA level.

Raising public awareness of prostate cancer is one of the key challenges for the future. We want men to know what their prostate is, what is does and what can go wrong with it. However, we have to raise public awareness in a responsible way so as not to cause undue anxiety and worry.

Thanks to the work of the prostate cancer advisory group we now have, for the first time, a definitive set of key messages for the general public, which include prostate cancer and in such a way as not to cause unnecessary anxiety.

The key messages have been agreed by 20 organisations, including charities, patient groups and professional bodies, as well as the Department and can be fed into existing and future communications vehicles or as stand alone messages.

We have provided funding for the following organisations to increase public awareness of prostate cancer:

In 2003–04 we provided £30,000 to the Men's Health Forum to help fund its publication, the Men and Cancer manual.

 
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We have provided £135,000 to the Prostate Cancer Charity to increase available information about prostate cancer.

We are providing £105,000 to the Prostate Cancer Charity to improve awareness of the risks and symptoms of prostate cancer in African and Afro-Caribbean men in Britain.

We are working with the voluntary sector to develop a national prostate cancer website and have provided £100,000 of funding. It is expected that the website will be launched this summer.

We are also working to both increase and improve clinical knowledge of prostate cancer. In April 2000, we published referral guidelines for suspected cancer to help general practitioners identify those patients who are most likely to have cancer and who therefore require urgent assessment by a specialist. The guidelines included a section on prostate cancer.

The National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) is currently reviewing this guidance and an update is due to be published in 2005.

The PCRMP has produced a booklet, called, The PSA test and prostate cancer: Information for primary care. This booklet provides GPs with an easy reference source on prostate cancer, from risk factors to treatment. The booklet was produced after consultation with GPs, primary care cancer leads and an expert advisory group.

In September 2002, NICE published guidance on urological cancers, including prostate cancer. This guidance covers all aspects of cancer care for urological cancer patients and is aimed at helping all of those involved in planning, commissioning, organising and providing cancer services to ensure high quality services.

As well as this guidance NICE is developing guidelines for the clinical management of prostate cancer and an overview of brachytherapy as an interventional procedure for prostate cancer. NICE is also appraising two prostate cancer drugs, Docetaxel and Atrasentan.

The cancer services collaborative has been working with urology teams across the country to improve access to care and to streamline the delivery of care.

We have also increased twenty-fold research funding for prostate cancer since 1999–2000; from £200,000 to £4.2million for 2003–04. This level of funding will be maintained, subject to the quality of research proposals.

Smoking

David Taylor: To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) if he will list the organisations and individuals from whom representations on the displacement of smoking from public places to homes as a result of legislation restricting smoking in public places were received during the preparation of the Public Health White Paper; [201951]

(2) what research his Department has collated on the possible displacement of smoking from public places to homes, as a result of legislation restricting smoking in public places; [201952]

(3) what research he has commissioned on the possible displacement of smoking from public places and workplaces as a result of legislation restricting smoking in such places; [201982]
 
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(4) what assessment has been made of the effect of exempting from restrictions on smoking in public places/pubs which do not serve prepared food would have on displacing smoking from public places to homes. [201995]

Miss Melanie Johnson: The proposals for legislation set out in the White Paper "Choosing Health—Making Healthy choices easier" to shift the balance in favour of smoke-free enclosed public places and workplaces were based on the scientific evidence of harm from second hand smoke and the views from the public. In preparation of the proposals, we took full account of the latest scientific and medical evidence of the risk to health from exposure to second hand smoke, as set out in the report from the Scientific Committee on Tobacco and Health, which was published alongside the White Paper. Many of the studies covered look at the effects on non-smokers of living with smokers.

We took full account of the views of the public, as expressed in over 150,000 responses to the public consultation on public health, in preparing our proposals. While protecting the right of the majority to go out for a meal or a drink without damage, inconvenience or pollution from second hand smoke, the proposals also provide a degree of choice for the minority. We believe that this is a sensible solution that balances the protection of the majority with the personal freedom of the minority in England.

We have made an assessment of the impact that smoking in public places would have in a reduction in smoking prevalence, which would thereby have a beneficial impact of reducing smoke at home. We will continue to act on the issue of second hand smoke in the home and have already taken action through the hard hitting campaign launched last year depicting the dangers of smoking around babies and children.

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