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16 Mar 2006 : Column 2475W—continued

Cheshire and Merseyside Strategic Health Authority

Rosie Cooper: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many people are working in (a) the Cheshire and Merseyside strategic health authority and (b) Southport and Ormskirk hospital trust; how many were working in each (i) in October 2005 and (ii) at its inception; and what the associated staff costs were for each organisation in each case. [56401]

Mr. Byrne: Information is not held in the format requested. However, the following tables show all national health service staff by selected group, for Cheshire and Merseyside strategic health authority (SHA) as at 30 September 2002 and 30 September 2004; all NHS staff by selected group, for Southport and Ormskirk hospital NHS trust as at 30 September 1999 and 30 September 2004; staff costs for Cheshire and Merseyside SHA, in 2002–03 and 2004–05; and staff costs for Southport and Ormskirk hospital NHS trust, in 1999–2000 and 2004–05.
NHS staff—selected groups for Cheshire and Merseyside SHA, as at 30 September each specified year Numbers (headcount)

	of which:		of which:	Hospital and community
	All NHS staff	All doctors(50)	All general practitioners (GPS)(51)	health staff(HCHS) doctors and dentists(50)	HCHS non-medical staff
2002	487	59	0	59	428
2004	239	30	0	30	209

⁽⁵⁰⁾ Excludes hospital practitioners and clinical assistants, most of these also work as a GP.
⁽⁵¹⁾ All GPs include contracted GPs, personal medical service (PMS) others, general medical service (GMS) others, GP registrars and GP retainers.
Note:
Practice staff includes practice nurses, direct patient care staff, administrative and clerical and other.
Source:
NHS Health and Social Care Information Centre: General and Personal Medical Services Statistics, Medical and Dental Workforce census and Non Medical Workforce Census.




 
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NHS staff—selected groups for Southport and Ormskirk Hospitals NHS trust, as at 30 September each specified year Numbers (headcount)

		of which:	of which:	HCHS	HCHS
	All NHS staff	All doctors(52)	All GPs(53)	doctors and dentists(52)	non-medical staff
1999	2,750	219	0	219	2,531
2004	3,323	260	0	260	3,063

⁽⁵²⁾ Excludes hospital practitioners and clinical assistants, most of these also work as a GP.
⁽⁵³⁾ All GPs include contracted GPs, PMS others, GMS others, GP registrars and GP retainers.
Source:
NHS Health and Social Care Information Centre General & Personal Medical Services Statistics; Medical and Dental Workforce census and Non Medical Workforce Census.




Staff costs at year of inception and in 2004–05 £

	Total staff costs
Cheshire and Merseyside SHA
2002–03	7,377,000
2004–05	7,015,000
Southport and Ormskirk hospital NHS trust
1999–2000	52,788,000
2004–05	83,225,000

Sources:
Audited summarisation forms of the Cheshire and Merseyside SHA 2002–03 and 2004–05
Audited summarisation schedules of the Southport and Ormskirk Hospital NHS Trust 1999–2000 and 2004–05

Rosie Cooper: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what estimate she has made of the likely cost of redundancies in (a) Cheshire and Merseyside strategic health authority and (b) primary care trusts within Cheshire and Merseyside strategic health authority as a result of planned hospital mergers. [56558]

Mr. Byrne: There are currently no definite proposals for hospital trust mergers in the Cheshire and Merseyside strategic health authority area.

Child Protection

Tim Loughton: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what steps her Department takes to check whether individuals employed to work with children in the NHS through employment by an agency have been (a) on her Department's list of individuals who are considered unsuitable to work with children and (b) on the sex offenders register. [47775]

Mr. Byrne: Full guidance on pre-appointment checks for national health service staff was issued by NHS employers in May 2005. The guidance covers the full range of checks required before appointments in the NHS can be confirmed, including checks with regulatory bodies (for professional staff), references, occupational health checks and Criminal Record Bureau checks. The guidance applies to all staff, whether directly employed by the NHS or not, including temporary agency staff and contractor staff and
 
16 Mar 2006 : Column 2477W
 
volunteers. Compliance with this guidance is monitored by the Healthcare Commission as part of the Commission's monitoring of the Standards for Better Health", which include a standard for staff recruitment checks.

Chlamydia

Sandra Gidley: To ask the Secretary of State for Health whether there are plans to extend the Boots NHS chlamydia screening initiative in London to other parts of the country. [55023]

Caroline Flint: An evaluation of the chlamydia screening pathfinder project is being carried out concurrently with the London pilot. Decisions about whether to extend the scheme nationally will be made once the evaluation has reported.

Contraception

Mr. Amess: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many morning-after pills have been distributed by North Devon primary care trust in each of the last 48 months. [57593]

Caroline Flint: The information available is shown in the following tables. Information on emergency hormonal contraception supplied under a patient group direction, by school nurses and pharmacists is not held centrally.
Occasions on which hormonal post-coital contraceptives dispensed at family planning clinics in North Devon primary care trust (PCT), 2001–02 to 2004–05

	Number
2001–02	288
2002–03	283
2003–04	287
2004–05	247

Source:
NHS Health and Social Care Information Centre, return KT31




Number of items (prescriptions⁽⁵⁴⁾) for emergency hormonal contraception. North Devon PCT, 2002—January 2006

	Number
2002	148
2003	60
2004	35
2005	59
2006(55)	19

⁽⁵⁴⁾ This includes community pharmacists, dispensing doctors and prescriptions submitted by prescribes whom North Devon is the responsible PCT.
⁽⁵⁵⁾ January 2006 only.
Source:
ePACT

Dentistry

David Taylor: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what impact she expects the introduction of the general dental services contract will have on the availability of free dental treatment for school-age NHS patients in North West Leicestershire. [58987]

Ms Rosie Winterton: The new general dental services contract does not alter eligibility for free national health service dental treatment for children under 18.
 
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Under the wider dental reforms being implemented from 1 April, it is for primary care trusts to commission and develop services in ways that best meet the needs of their local populations.

The new contracts are designed to promote new ways of working, based on the expert clinical guidelines produced by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, that should, over time, support dentists in seeing a greater range of both adult and child patients, thereby improving access to dentistry.

Elder Abuse

Sandra Gidley: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what steps she is taking to ensure that effective vetting and barring mechanisms are in place to protect older people at risk of abuse. [46553]

Mr. Byrne: The Protection of Vulnerable Groups Bill, published on 1 March, proposes to extend coverage of the existing barring schemes, to provide a more comprehensive and consistent measure of protection for vulnerable groups across social care, the national health service and beyond. Subject to the successful passage through Parliament of the bill, staged implementation of the new scheme will begin in 2007 with the bulk of the scheme rolled out in 2008.

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