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10 Oct 2005 : Column 205W—continued

Departmental Buildings

Julia Goldsworthy: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what the total floor space area is of buildings owned or leased by (a) her Department and (b) its agencies. [15183]

Jane Kennedy: The Department and its executive agencies occupy two freehold properties comprising 23,217.8 square metres (m 2 ) both occupied by the Department; and 25 leased properties comprising 48,268.02m 2 occupied by the Department and 17,641.10m 2 occupied by its agencies.

Departmental Conferences

David T.C. Davies: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how much the Department spent on organising or sponsoring conferences for each of the last five years. [10274]

Jane Kennedy: This information is not held centrally and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.
 
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Departmental Contractors

Mr. Davidson: To ask the Secretary of State for Health if she will list contractors based in other EU member states that are providing services to her Department. [15454]

Jane Kennedy: The information requested is not readily available and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.

The Department awards all contracts in line with the United Kingdom's objective of achieving value for money and in line with European Union Treaty obligations on transparency and free movement of goods and services.

Departmental Expenditure

Julia Goldsworthy: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what the annual expenditure was by (a) her Department and (b) its agencies on (i) electricity and (ii) water and sewerage services in each year since 1997. [15389]

Jane Kennedy: Costs for the Department's London estate are shown in the tables.
£

ElectricityWater and sewerage
1997–98615,00736,396
1998–99614,78333,614
1999–2000634,85932,607
2000–01545,07932,224
2001–02579,10229,009
2002–03551,93834,684
2003–04572,78229,372
2004–05695,83430,689

London staff of the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) occupy buildings where the utilities are included within the service charge. Figures for electricity costs only are available as shown in the tables.
£

Electricity
1997–9858,654
1998–9953,124
1999–200048,124
2000–0149,219
2001–0253,689
2002–0350,382
2003–0457,855
2004–0563,864

The National Health Service Purchasing and Supplies Authority (NHS PASA) became an agency of the Department in April 2000. Figures for the years following are shown in the tables.
£

ElectricityWater and sewerage
2000–0123,5913,704
2001–0232,9012,576
2002–0338,5702,476
2003–0430,1222,292
2004–0539,4042,118









 
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The activities of the NHS Pensions Agency transferred from the Department to the NHS with effect from 1 April 2004. Figures for previous years are shown in the table.
£

ElectricityWater and sewerage
1997–9860,55426,237
1998–9961,33327,459
1999–200055,32630,675
2000–0150,67813,542
2001–0252,91923,026
2002–0346,78724,218
2003–0456,30927,003

The NHS Estates Agency occupied rented office space in Leeds city centre, where its energy and water costs were included in the service charge.

Departmental Procurement

Julia Goldsworthy: To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) whether her Department's procurement policy includes timber used on and in the construction of departmental building projects; and if she will make a statement; [15297]

(2) if she will list her Department's refurbishment projects that (a) are in progress and (b) will start in the next six months; what action is being taken to ensure that these will procure timber from legal and sustainable sources; and if she will issue guidance to contractors on each of these projects to ensure that the timber used on-site during refurbishment also comes from legal and sustainable sources. [15298]

Jane Kennedy: Refurbishment of the Department's offices in Wellington House is the only current project and no further projects are planned for the next six months.

Instructions issued to building contractors as part of the contract documentation require that all timber and timber products are procured in accordance with current Government guidance and that the relevant documentary evidence is available.

Departmental Websites

Sarah Teather: To ask the Secretary of State for Health if she will list the websites that come under her Department's responsibility; what the cost was of each in the last year for which figures are available; and how many visitors there were to each site in that year. [15903]

Jane Kennedy: To identify the costs and the number of visitors to each agency and non-departmental public body website associated with the Department, which are not all directly operated by the Department, would incur disproportionate costs. However, the available information about the Department's corporate website and each of the Department's Executive agencies' websites is listed as follows.

Department of Health—www.dh.gov.uk.

The cost of the Department's corporate website and the sub domain sites listed below for the year 2004–05 was £724,956. These figures include hosting and
 
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maintenance, development and dedicated staff costs, using agreed civil service staff costs including salaries, common services, etc.

The total number of visits to the main Department's website at www.dh.gov.uk for the period April 2004 to March 2005 was 14,541,987 There were on average 720,326 unique users per month.

In addition to the main corporate website, the Department has a number of sub domain sites. The number of visits to these sites is shown in the table.

Sub domain name
Number of visits
(April 2004–March 2005)
www.advisorybodies.doh.gov.uk
504,100
www.performance.doh.gov.uk619,416
www.publications.doh.gov.uk1,362,829
www.info.doh.gov.uk2,607,266

The National Health Service Purchasing and Supply Agency (NHS PASA)—www.pasa.doh.gov.uk.

The NHS PASA was established on 1 April 2000.

The website received 406,000 visits between July 2004 and June 2005. The costs for this period were £86,000.

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency—www.mhra.gov.uk.

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) replaced the Medical Devices Agency and the Medicines Control Agency on 1 April 2003.

The website received 1,785,565 visits between July 2004 and June 2005. The MHRA is unable to isolate from overall information technology costs the cost for running the entire site. The cost per annum for the devices section of the site is £24,111 for hosting and £20,000 for staff costs. It is currently completing a major project to redevelop the MHRA website, which is due to be launched in the early autumn.

NHS Estates—www.nhsestates.gov.uk.

The NHS Estates website was created in September 2000. From July 2004 to June 2005 the total number of visitors was 251,317. The costs for this period were approximately £50,000.

Diagnostic Scans

Mr. Kevan Jones: To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) what percentage of diagnostic scans in the NHS she expects will be carried out by independent sector providers by 2008; [15143]

(2) pursuant to her oral answer of 12 July 2005, Official Report, column 684, on MRI scans, what factors were taken into consideration when determining that (a) an extra 900,000 MRI scans would be purchased by 2008 and (b) a quarter of scans on the NHS would be carried out by the independent sector. [15948]

Mr. Byrne: Strategic health authorities (SHAs) are planning for 10.6 per cent. of diagnostic scans, such as magnetic resonance imaging, computerised tomography and ultrasound, in the national health service to be carried out by independent sector (IS) providers by 2007–08. The commitments to expand diagnostics services in the NHS and the IS are based on the outcomes
 
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of a departmental coordinated capacity planning exercise with all SHAs in order to reduce waiting times for patients and specifically to increase the diagnostic services required to meet the maximum 18 week waiting time target from referral to treatment promised in the Government's election manifesto.

Bob Spink: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many diagnostic scans were carried out in the Essex Health Authority area in each of the last five years. [15605]

Ms Rosie Winterton: Data on the total number of diagnostic scans are not centrally available. Data are, however, collected on the number of imaging and radiodiagnostic examinations or tests. The latest data for 2003–04 are available on the Department's website at www.performance.doh.gov.uk/hospitalactivity.


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