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Common Assessment Framework

Mr. Lansley: To ask the Secretary of State for Health when she expects to introduce a common assessment framework as described at paragraph 5.26 of the White Paper 'Our Health, Our Care, Our Say'; and what the differences are between the common assessment framework and the single assessment process. [57728]

Mr. Byrne: Work to develop a common assessment framework is at an early stage. We envisage building on, rather than replacing, the existing single assessment process for older people in order to make it applicable to other client groups.

Community Hospitals

Mr. Davey: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what assessment she has made of the likely change in the workload of Kingston Hospital if Surbiton Community Hospital is closed. [58918]

 
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Jane Kennedy: The South West London Strategic Health Authority have advised that, inpatient beds, which were at Surbiton Hospital, were successfully transferred at the end of November 2005 and are currently provided on the Tolworth Hospital site (intermediate care) and in a local nursing home (continuing care). These arrangements would remain in place if Surbiton Hospital were to be closed. Kingston Primary Care Trust (PCT) is currently examining the potential for continuing the provision of outpatient services at Surbiton Hospital, prior to a decision being made at the PCT board meeting on 7 April. This includes an assessment of the potential impact upon Kingston Hospital.

Mr. Davey: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what recent estimate she has made of the numberof beds available in community hospitals in (a) Kingston and Surbiton, (b) South West London and (c) London. [58924]

Jane Kennedy: The Department collects data on the number of available and occupied hospital beds from trusts and primary care trusts (PCTs). Trusts and PCTs are not required to submit their data on an individual hospital basis. Aggregated data by trust or PCT are available on the Department's website for hospital activity at:

www.performance.doh.gov.uk/hospitalactivity/data_requests/beds_open_overnight.htm

Continuing Care (Funding)

Sandra Gidley: To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) what procedures she has put in place to ensure that (a) community care nurses, (b) social workers and (c) review panels observe her directive of 3 March requiring (i) them to be familiar with and (ii)act in accordance with the implications of judgments in the Coughlan and Grogan cases relating to the funding of continuing NHS care; [59714]

(2) what steps she is taking to ensure that all refusals of fully-funded NHS continuing care prior to 3 March are re-considered in light of her directive of that date; [59715]

(3) what estimate she has made of the cost to the NHS of implementing her directive of 3 March on NHS continuing care with retrospective effect. [59717]

Mr. Byrne: Department guidance to strategic health authorities following the Grogan" judgment makes it clear that it is their responsibility to ensure that their continuing care eligibility criteria and assessment processes are operating in line with legal rulings. Strategic health authorities are required to disseminate guidance internally, and satisfy themselves that correct procedures are being followed.

If a strategic health authority revises its eligibility criteria or processes following legal advice in light of the Grogan" judgment, the guidance requires strategic health authorities to determine, based on local circumstances, which individuals or groups of individuals may be at highest risk of having been wrongly assessed. It is the responsibility of the health authority to assess potential for any changes to impact on individuals and act accordingly. The Department
 
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cannot pre-judge the outcome of strategic health authorities taking legal advice regarding the lawfulness of their continuing care processes.

Deaf-blind People

Mr. Stewart Jackson: To ask the Secretary of State for Health whether she plans to review the operation of the statutory guidance for the social care of deafblind children and adults in England and Wales; and if she will make a statement. [57279]

Mr. Byrne: We have no plans to review the operation of the statutory guidance for the social care of deafblind children and adults in England and Wales. It is the responsibility of councils to identify the number of deafblind people in their area and provide services to meet their assessed needs.

Dentistry

John Cummings: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many people are (a) registered and (b) not registered with an NHS dentist in the Easington primary care trust area. [46008]

Ms Rosie Winterton: The information is not available in the format requested. Information on the number of people not registered with a national health service dentist is not collected centrally. However the number ofgeneral dental service and personal dental service patients seen as at 30 November 2005 was 42,458. An estimate of the percentage of patients registered with an NHS dentist in the Easington primary care trust area is shown in the table.

The proportion of people registered within the Easington primary care trust as at November 2005 (last available data) was 46 per cent. (estimated).
General dental services (GDS) and personal dental services (PDS)

Easington PCT	Estimate of the percentage patients registered(44)
Adults	44
Children	50
All	46

⁽⁴⁴⁾Using population estimates at 2004.
Notes:
1.The percentages of the population registered with a dentist, or registration rate, have been estimated by including patient registrations in the area of the dentist, that is according to the postcode of the dental surgery and not the patient's address. So the registration rates for some areas may be affected by some patients receiving dental treatment in a different area from the one in which they live.
2.Estimates have been calculated using population estimates for the nearest year for which data are available. 2005 percentages have been calculated using 2004 mid-year population estimates.
Source:
NHS Health and Social Care Information Centre.

Mr. Steen: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many dentists from each EU accession country are practising in England; and what estimate she has made of how many have returned to their country of origin in the last 12 months. [59375]

Ms Rosie Winterton: The table shows the numbers of general dental services (GDS) or personal dental services (PDS) dentists and numbers of complete
 
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leavers ¹ by country of qualification, of the 10 countries that joined the European Union on 1 May 2004, in England as at 30 September 2005.

Country	GDS and PDS dentists	Complete leaver(45)
Czech Republic	7	0
Cyprus	0	0
Estonia	0	0
Hungary	0	0
Latvia	6	0
Lithuania	0	0
Malta	6	1
Poland	341	0
Slovakia	0	0
Slovenia	0	0

⁽⁴⁵⁾Complete leaver means the dentist had an open GDS or PDS contract in September 2004 but no GDS or PDS contract in September 2005.
Source:
NHS Health and Social Care Information Centre

Data on the destination of dentists leaving the GDS or PDS are not held centrally.

Mr. Jenkin: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many (a) full-time and (b) part-time NHS dentists there were in (i) Essex and (ii) England in each of the last five years; and how many dentists there were in (A) Essex and (B) England per thousand head of population in each of the last five years. [59578]

Ms Rosie Winterton [holding answer 17 March 2006]: The numbers broken down by full-time and part-time are not available.

The total numbers of national health service dentists with a general dental services (GDS) or personal dental services (PDS) contract, and dentists per 1,000 population, in England and in Essex Strategic Health Authority (SHA) as at 30 September each year are shown in the table. Information concerning the amount of time dedicated to NHS work by individual GDS or PDS dentists is not centrally available.
England

	Number of GDS and PDS dentists	Dentists per 1,000 population
2001	18,722	0.38
2002	18,946	0.38
2003	19,260	0.39
2004	19,722	0.39
2005	20,890	0.42

 
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Essex SHA

	Number of GDS and PDS dentists	Dentists per 1,000 population
2001	590	0.37
2002	566	0.35
2003	574	0.35
2004	595	0.36
2005	662	0.40

Source:
NHS Health and Social Care Information Centre

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