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Waste Disposal/Collection

Mrs. Spelman: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister what effects the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 has had on the role of county councils in determining local policies on waste disposal and collection. [217787]

Keith Hill: Regional planning bodies are expected to seek the advice of county councils when preparing and implementing regional spatial strategies. County councils themselves will be responsible for the preparation and implementation of minerals and waste development frameworks. Both regional and local planning will take a spatial planning approach, bringing together and integrating policies for the development and use of land with other policies and programmes which influence the nature of places and how they function.

Mrs. Spelman: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister what role regional spatial strategies play in the determination of policies on incineration and waste disposal. [217794]

Keith Hill: Regional Spatial Strategies should enable sustainable waste management in line with the Government's national waste strategy and be capable of being carried forward into local development documents prepared by waste planning authorities. Draft Planning Policy Statement 10 "Planning for Sustainable Waste Management", currently undergoing consultation, proposes that regional spatial strategies should include waste policies, a distribution of waste tonnage requiring management by waste planning authority area and, where necessary, a pattern of waste facilities of national, regional or sub-regional significance.
 
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Westbury Homes Development (Plymouth)

Mr. Streeter: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister if he will call in the proposed planning application by Westbury Homes at the former Blue Circle site, Pomphlett, Plymouth for determination by his Department; and if he will make a statement. [218057]

Keith Hill: As of 23 February 2005, no such planning application has been submitted, although Plymouth city council expect one to be submitted in the week commencing 28 February. It will then be for the Council to decide whether the project is a departure from the development plan, and whether it should be referred to the First Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister. It is too early to comment on the application or whether it will be called in, because we do not know what the application will contain, and to comment now could risk prejudicing the First Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister's future decisions.

HEALTH

A and E Admissions

Mr. Hoyle: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many accident and emergency admissions there were in (a) Chorley and (b) Preston for (i) adults and (ii) children in each of the last 16 quarters. [215498]

Ms Rosie Winterton: The information is shown in the tables. Data split by adults and children are not held centrally.
Attendances at accident and emergency (A and E) departments at Lancashire teaching hospitals national health service trust

	Quarter	Total A and E attendances at Lancashire teaching hospitals NHS trust(25)
2004–05	2	27,637
2004–05	1	27,944
2003–04	4	24,898
2003–04	3	24,581
2003–04	2	27,235
2003–04	1	26,883
2002–03	4	23,757
2002–03	3	23,733
2002–03	2	26,272
2002–03	1	26,322

⁽²⁵⁾ Lancashire teaching hospitals includes both Royal Preston hospital and Chorley and South Ribble district general hospital.
Source:
Department of Health dataset QMAE

Buckinghamshire Mental Health Trust

Mr. Goodman: To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) which NHS bodies pay people employed by Buckinghamshire Mental Health Trust; [217941]

(2) how many people and what percentage of people employed by Bucks Mental Health Trust are paid by other NHS bodies; [217949]

(3) how many (a) hospitals and (b) other NHS bodies have equipment supplied to them by the Central Sterile Supplies Department at Wycombe Hospital. [217950]

 
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Ms Rosie Winterton [holding answer 24 February 2005]: The information requested is not collected by the Department.

Consultant Episodes

Mr. Lansley: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many finished consultant episodes in NHS hospitals in England there were in each year from 1999 to 2004. [208798]

Miss Melanie Johnson: The information requested is shown in the following table.
Count of finished consultant episodes—national health service hospitals in England 1998–99 to 2003–04

	Finished consultant episodes
1998–99	12,108,141
1999–2000	12,290,278
2000–01	12,476,470
2001–02	12,407,588
2002–03	12,716,440
2003–04	13,175,880

Notes:
1. A finished consultant episode is defined as a period of admitted patient care under one consultant within one healthcare provider. Please note that the figures do not represent the number of patients, as a person may have more than one episode of care within the year.
2. Figures are grossed for both coverage and missing/invalid clinical data, except for 2002–03 and 2003–04, which are not yet adjusted for shortfalls.
3. Figures prior to 2003–04 exclude NHS commissioned activity performed in the independent sector. Additional activity takes place in other care settings: in 2003–04, there were 517,000 operative procedures in primary care and 2,072,000 procedures in outpatients. Equivalent outpatient figures for 2002–03 are 1,735,000 procedures and 1,115,000 procedures for 2001–02.
Source:
Hospital episode statistics, Department of Health.

Dentistry

Mr. Burstow: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what estimate his Department has made of the cost of exempting all patients (a) over 75 and (b) under 21 years from dental charges on the NHS; and if he will make a statement. [213476]

Ms Rosie Winterton: Children and young people under age 18, expectant and nursing mothers and people on low incomes are already exempt from dental charges. The cost of extending these exemptions would be the amount of patient charge income forgone. Patient charges raised from national health service dental treatments in the general and personal dental service amounted to £29.3 million in 2003–04 in England for patients aged 75 or over. £10.7 million was raised for patients aged 18, 19 and 20.

Mr. Lansley: To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) what research he has commissioned into the impact on dental laboratories of methods of working under personal dental services contracts; [210823]
 
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(2) what research (a) has been commissioned and (b) is planned into differences in treatment patterns between dentists operating under general dental service contracts and personal dental service contracts. [216146]

Ms Rosie Winterton: The Comptroller and Auditor General presented a report to the House on 23 November 2004 entitled "Reforming NHS Dentistry: ensuring effective management of risks". This includes a review of the Personal Dental Service (PDS) system. This reported that in 1998, the Department commissioned the university of Birmingham to review the implementation of the PDS pilot scheme. The review focused on all 15 first wave pilots and five of the second wave pilots and examined developments over the first three years of operation, As the aim of each pilot was unique the review reviewed each pilot's progress against its specific objectives and did not compare relative performance.

The review's key findings were that the PDS system improved access to national health service dental services and provided greater flexibility to provide NHS services. Changes in the method of payment changed the nature of professional work undertaken; the specialist pilots were successful in providing specialist dental care in a non-hospital setting; and most pilots had a key person whose enthusiasm was central to facilitating progress. There was also some evidence to suggest that dentists may initially prescribe proportionately fewer intricate dental appliances from dental laboratories under the PDS system than dentists working to the current general dental services contract. Against this, the research shows that dentists in the PDS spend more time on treating patients and this should generate more work for dental laboratories. Case studies which the NHS Modernisation Agency are carrying out on the field sites, which they are managing to develop and test new ways of working in NHS dentistry should provide further information on changes in practice.

In managing PDS schemes, primary care trusts seek to ensure that patients receive all the services, which are clinically necessary.

Mr. Lansley: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what assessment he has made of the average percentage of working time that all dentists operating under the general dental contract have spent on NHS work, in each year since 1997. [216144]

Ms Rosie Winterton: The available information is in Appendix E of the supplement to the 30th report 2001 of the Review Body on Doctors' and Dentists' Remuneration Cm 4999. In table 89, in March 2000, mean hours per week of a general dental practitioner on general dental service (GDS) (national health service) work were 25.13 hours with 7.91 hours on private practice and with 1.16 hours shared time. GDS time as a percentage of GDS time and private practice time in March 2000 was 76 per cent.

We are to introduce new contractual arrangements for NHS dentistry which are intended to make NHS dentistry more attractive to dentists. One of the main changes is the replacement of the treatment based, item of service method of paying dentists with a remuneration package derived from an evidence-based assessment of patients' overall oral health care needs.
 
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This will enable dentists to spend more time with their patients and reward them for giving oral health promotion advice.

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