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15 Nov 2005 : Column 1168W—continued

Healthcare Professionals Recruitment

Andrew George: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many healthcare professionals from developing countries have been recruited by the NHS from private hospitals in England in each year since 2001 for which records are available, broken down by country of origin. [24206]

Mr. Byrne: This information is not held centrally.

Andrew George: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many healthcare recruitment agencies operating (a) from the UK and (b) from outside the UK are registered to comply with the Code of Practice for the International Recruitment of Healthcare Professionals. [24216]

Mr. Byrne: NHS Employers is responsible for monitoring the Code of Practice and maintaining the register of agencies.

NHS Employers reports that there are 225 agencies operating from the United Kingdom (UK) and 40 from outside the UK registered to comply with the Code of Practice for the International Recruitment of Healthcare Professionals.
 
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Andrew George: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many healthcare recruitment agencies that (a) have and (b) have not registered with the Code of Practice for the International Recruitment of Healthcare Professionals have been used by the NHS since December 2004; and on how many occasions in each case. [24218]

Mr. Byrne: This information is not collected centrally. NHS Employers are responsible for monitoring the Code of Practice and maintaining the register of agencies. The Code of Practice was revised by the Department in December 2004.

The guidance on the Code of Practice makes it clear that the national health service should not be contracting with agencies not listed under the Code of Practice.

Andrew George: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how her Department monitors the activities of healthcare recruitment agencies that have registered under the Code of Practice of the International Recruitment of Healthcare Professionals. [24219]

 
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Mr. Byrne: Monitoring compliance with the Code of Practice is now the responsibility of NHS Employers, the organisation which represents employers in the national health service. NHS Employers works closely with strategic health authorities and trusts to ensure that the NHS abides by the code.

Andrew George: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what breaches her Department has found of the code of practice for the International Recruitment of Healthcare Professionals; and what proportion of agencies registered have been investigated for breaches. [24220]

Mr. Byrne: This information is not collected centrally. NHS Employers is responsible for monitoring the code of practice and maintaining the register of agencies.

Hospital Waiting Times

Mr. Hepburn: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what the average waiting time in hospitals in (a) South Tyneside, (b) the North East and (c) England has been in each year since 1997. [21051]

Mr. Byrne: The median waiting times for in-patient admission at South Tyneside Healthcare National Health Service Trust, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear Special Health Authority and England are shown in the table.
Estimated average time patients have been waiting for elective admission, March 1997 to June 2005—provider based

	Median waiting time (weeks)
	March
	1997	1998	1999	2000	2001
South Tyneside Healthcare NHS Trust	15.6	16.4	14.9	12.4	10.5
Northumberland, Tyne and Wear SHA	11.9	12.3	11.9	11.2	11.1
England	13.2	14.8	12.8	12.9	12.6

	March				June
	2002	2003	2004	2005	2005
South Tyneside Healthcare NHS Trust	9.5	8.7	8.3	6.3	5.8
Northumberland, Tyne and Wear SHA	11.8	10.8	9.6	7.5	7.1
England	12.7	11.9	10.2	8.4	8.0

Source:
Department of Health form KH07

Infection Control

Mr. Lansley: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many infection control nurses have been employed in the NHS in each of the last three years; and what the ratio of infection control nurses to beds has been in each of the last three years. [23030]

Mr. Byrne: The information requested is not collected centrally.

In-patient Beds

Mr. Yeo: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what guidance her Department has issued on the minimum safe number of in- -patient beds per head of population. [23226]

Mr. Byrne: No specific guidance has been issued. The planning of health service capacity, including in-patient beds, is for strategic health authorities to lead locally, within the framework of the Department's guidance on capacity planning. The planning of in-patient beds needs to take account of services available from other parts of local health and social care systems, including primary, community, rehabilitative and long-term care.

Mental Health

Ed Balls: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many children aged five to 16 have a clinically diagnosed mental disorder in (a) Normanton constituency, (b) Wakefield East Primary Care Trust (PCT), (c) Wakefield West PCT, (d) Wakefield District and (e) West Yorkshire. [24248]

Mr. Byrne: The table shows the number of children aged between five and 16 years with a primary psychiatric diagnosis (ICD-10 codes F00 to F99) ¹ by gender and within the Eastern Wakefield Primary Care Trust (PCT) and Wakefield West PCTs and within the West Yorkshire Strategic Health Authority (SHA), in the latest year that figures are available ² .
 
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	Aged 5 to 16 years
	Male	Female	All patients
West Yorkshire SHA	80	80	160
Eastern Wakefield PCT	10	10	20
Wakefield West PCT	10	10	10

⁽²¹⁾ Diagnoses are taken from chapter V (Mental and Behavioural Disorders) of the 10th Revision of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10).
⁽²²⁾ Figures have not been adjusted for shortfalls in data, that is, the data are ungrossed.
Note:
Disclosure rules apply due to the sensitive nature of the data; therefore, figures have been rounded to the nearest 10.
Source:
Hospital Episode Statistics (HES), NHS Health and Social Care Information Centre

Angela Browning: To ask the Secretary of State for Health when she expects to be in a position to publish the Mental Health Bill. [26080]

Ms Rosie Winterton: The Mental Health Bill will be introduced when the legislative timetable permits.

Modernising Medical Careers

Tony Baldry: To ask the Secretary of State for Health when she was first informed that NHS trusts would replace six-month contracts for senior house officers with year-long placements to fit with the Modernising Medical Careers initiative. [18495]

Mr. Byrne: This decision was foreshadowed in a ministerial policy statement made by the four United Kingdom (UK) Health Ministers on 25 February 2003. The specific decision was taken at the meeting of the Modernising Medical Careers UK strategy group on 18 March 2005.

NHS Commissioning

Steve Webb: To ask the Secretary of State for Health if she will set out the rationale behind the decision to reduce the role of primary care trusts in direct provision of health services to a minimum; and on what evidence the decision was based. [19075]

Mr. Byrne: No decisions on the future provision of community and primary healthcare services will be taken until after the White Paper on community healthcare services has been published. The White Paper will be informed by the results of the Your Health, Your Care, Your Say listening exercise currently underway. Clinical services will continue to be provided by primary care trusts (PCTs) unless and until those PCTs decide otherwise. These decisions would be driven locally, following our White Paper deliberations, and will only be implemented following full local public and staff consultation.

Strategic health authorities (SHAs) have recently submitted their proposals for the reconfiguration of PCTs, which set out how they intend to strengthen their commissioning function. These proposals will be assessed by an independent external panel drawn from and representing a wide range of stakeholder interests. The panel will determine whether the SHA proposals meet the criteria stipulated in Commissioning a
 
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Patient-Led NHS" (July 2005). If the criteria are judged to have been met, the proposals will go forward to a three-month public consultation. No further decisions on the reorganisation of PCTs will be taken until this process has been completed.

Mr. Gordon Prentice: To ask the Secretary of State for Health whether she expects that some doctors, nurses and managers will reform their practices into limited companies and contract as private and not-for-profit companies for the provision of practice services following the implementation of her proposals on Commissioning in the NHS. [19149]

Mr. Byrne: There is no expectation for practices to reform themselves into limited companies as a result of Commissioning a Patient-Led NHS". Changing the way that healthcare services currently provided by primary care trusts (PCTs) is a matter for them. A White Paper on social care and community healthcare services will be published at the turn of the year and this will be informed by the results of the Your Health, Your Care, Your Say public listening exercise currently under way. Any proposals on the future provision of PCT services will also be subject to full local and staff consultation in the usual way.

Mr. Gordon Prentice: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what guidance she has given primary care trusts on the future of medical and allied services currently provided directly by them which would be provided by alternative providers following the implementation of her policy to turn primary care trusts into commissioning bodies. [19154]

Mr. Byrne: No guidance has been issued to primary care trusts on the future provision of medical and allied healthcare services.

Mr. Burstow: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what safeguards she plans to put in place to ensure that an outsourced provider of the commissioning function of a primary care trust is not owned by an organisation that is also competing to provide services in the same area. [20965]

Mr. Byrne: The Department has received proposals from all strategic health authorities setting out their proposals for the reconfiguration of primary care trusts (PCTs) in order to strengthen their commissioning function. The proposals will shortly be assessed by an external panel, representing a wide range of stakeholder interests, to determine whether they meet the criteria stipulated in July's Commissioning a Patient-Led NHS". Proposals that meet these criteria will then be subject to a full three-month public consultation. No further decisions on the reorganisation of PCTs will be taken until this process has been completed.

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