| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
13 Jun 2006 : Column 1149W—continued
| Counts of FCEs and patients where there was a primary diagnosis code for selected alcohol related diseases( 1) in national health service hospitals in London SHAs 2002-03 to 2004-05 | ||||||
| 2002-03 | 2003-04 | 2004-05 | ||||
| SHA | FCEs | Patients | FCEs | Patients | FCEs | Patients |
| (1) Alcohol related diseases defined as following ICD-10 codes recorded in primary diagnosis: F10: Mental and behavioural disorders due to use of alcohol K70: Alcoholic liver disease T51: Toxic effect of alcohol Notes: Finished consultant episode (FCE): A FCE is defined as a period of admitted patient care under one consultant within one healthcare provider. Figures do not represent the number of patients, as a person may have more than one episode of care within the year. Patient counts: Patient counts are based on the unique patient identifier hospital episode statistics identifier (HESID). This identifier is derived based on patient's date of birth, postcode, sex, local patient identifier and NHS number, using an agreed algorithm. Where data are incomplete, HESID might erroneously link episodes or fail to recognise episodes for the same patient. Care is therefore needed, especially where duplicate records persist in the data. The patient count cannot be summed across a table where patients may have episodes in more than one cell. Diagnosis (primary diagnosis): The primary diagnosis is the first of up to 14 (seven prior to 2002-03) diagnosis fields in the hospital episode statistics (HES) data set and provides the main reason why the patient was in hospital. Primary care trust (PCT) and SHA data quality: PCT and SHA data were added to historic data-years in the HES database using 2002-03 boundaries, as a one-off exercise in 2004. The quality of the data on PCT of treatment and SHA of treatment is poor in 1996-97, 1997-98 and 1998-99, with over a third of all finished episodes having missing values in these years. Data quality of PCT of general practitioner (GP) practice and SHA of GP practice in 1997-98 and 1998-99 is also poor, with a high proportion missing values where practices changed or ceased to exist. There is less change in completeness of the residence-based fields over time, where the majority of unknown values are due to missing postcodes on birth episodes. Users of time series analysis including these years need to be aware of these issues in their interpretation of the data. 5. Ungrossed data: Figures have not been adjusted for shortfalls in data, that is the data are ungrossed. Source: Hospital episode statistics (HES), the Information Centre for health and social care. | ||||||
Cannabis (Therapeutic Use)
Paul Flynn: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what plans she has to change the status of drugs derived from cannabinoids to allow their wider legal use for pain and spasm control. [75927]
Mr. Coaker: I have been asked to reply.
The Home Office continues to license clinical trials aimed at developing non-smoked medicines derived from cannabis. We would seek Parliament’s agreement to make any necessary changes to the law to enable the prescription of cannabis-based medicine, for the purposes of relieving pain and spasm control, but not before product approval from the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA). The MHRA is responsible for evaluating the safety, quality and effectiveness of all prospective medicinal products. It is a process which is designed to protect public health.
Care Costs
Mrs. Iris Robinson: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what estimate she has made of the cost of providing free (a) personal care and (b) long-term care for each year until 2015. [77290]
Mr. Ivan Lewis: I refer the hon. Member to the reply given on 8 June 2005, Official Report, columns 585-86W.
Child Sexual Abuse
Mr. Sheerman: To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) what therapeutic services her Department provides for children who have suffered sexual abuse; [75482]
(2) what assessment her Department has made of (a) the psychological effects of child sexual abuse and (b) effective treatments for such effects; [75483]
(3) what steps her Department is taking to ensure that children who have experienced sexual abuse receive the therapeutic services they require. [75484]
Mr. Ivan Lewis: Specialist services including treatment for sexually transmitted infections, termination of pregnancy and mental health services are available for those children who need them as a result of sexual abuse. For children with less severe mental health problems, it is more appropriate for universal services to provide the psychological support they need than for them to be referred to specialist child and adolescent mental health services.
The Department and the Mental Health Foundation jointly funded a multi-centre study to evaluate the use of psychotherapy with girls aged six to 14 years who had been sexually abused. Two of the main findings were that high rates of depression, anxiety and post traumatic stress disorder were found and both group and individual psychotherapy were effective and improvement in the patients’ condition tended to continue after treatment had ended.
It is important that children and maternity health services (CAMHS) are developed in a way that is responsive to the needs of the populations they serve. The CAMHS standard of the children's national service framework (NSF) sets out the requirement for an assessment of the needs of particular groups of children in the locality who are vulnerable or at risk. The NSF also states the commissioners and services should be able to
“demonstrate multi-agency partnership working in the following areas: the provision of services to children and young people who may or may not have been harmed, as set out in ‘Working Together to Safeguard Children’, contributing to the assessment of complex child abuse cases; the assessment and provision of post-abuse therapeutic services; and services for looked after and adopted children”.
Choose and Book System
Andrew George: To ask the Secretary of State for Health pursuant to the answer of 8 May 2006, Official Report, columns 63-64W on the choose and book system, what budget was set before the system was set up for adding the choose and book system to the other systems that send messages through the care record spine. [73257]
Mr. Ivan Lewis: A key element of the national health service care records service is to provide a transaction messaging capability to support the messaging requirements of all the systems supported by the spine. The cost of spine services relating to choose and book messaging is not separately identified within the contract cost of the care record spine.
Andrew George: To ask the Secretary of State for Health pursuant to the answer of 16 May 2006, Official Report, column 935W, on the choose and book system, (1) for how many years she expects financial incentives to GPs and GP practices to be necessary for the operation of the scheme; [73277]
(2) what budget has been set to fund the necessary revisions to the general medical service contract in respect of the (a) choice and (b) choose and book component; [73284]
(3) what estimate she has made of the cost in each of the next five years of providing financial incentives to GPs to use the choose and book system if all GPs were to register and employ the choice and choose and book component. [73285]
Mr. Ivan Lewis: The payments available to primary medical care contractors for utilisation of the choose and book service and for delivering choice to patients were agreed as part of the amended contractual arrangements that run from April 2006 to March 2007. Whether there is a need for payments in future years will be a matter for consideration by NHS employers in the context of their continuing review of the contractual arrangements as a whole.
The full value of the directed enhanced service (DBS) is 96 pence per registered patient. There are approximately 53.3 million registered patients in England. Assuming that every practice in England meets the full requirements of both components of the DES, the value of the DES in 2006-07 could be just over £50 million, which is funded as a relatively small part of the growth in overall resource allocations to primary care trusts.
Andrew George: To ask the Secretary of State for Health pursuant to the answer of 16 May 2006, Official Report, column 935W, on the choose and book system, what estimate she has made of the administrative cost of each referral. [73286]
Mr. Ivan Lewis: No estimate has been made of the administrative cost of each referral made using the choose and book service. However, the choose and book service should reduce considerably the overall administrative burden of managing referrals.
Andrew George: To ask the Secretary of State for Health pursuant to the answer of 16 May 2006, Official Report, column 935W, on the choose and book system, what budget has been allocated to administer the system in 2006-07. [73287]
Mr. Ivan Lewis: This is a matter for individual primary care trusts and strategic health authorities.
Andrew George: To ask the Secretary of State for Health pursuant to the answer of 16 May 2006, Official Report, column 935W, on the choose and book system, what comprises the choice component. [73288]
Mr. Ivan Lewis: I refer the hon. Member to the second paragraph of the reply given on 16 May 2006, Official Report, column 935W:
The full value of the directed enhanced service is 96p per registered patient and comprises two equal components, one for choice (48p) and one for choose and book (48p). Half of the choice component, worth 24p will be made as an aspiration payment to those general practitioner practices who make a written commitment to ensure that choice is offered to relevant patients. The remaining half, also worth 24p, will be paid based on the results of a new survey of patient experience.
Andrew George: To ask the Secretary of State for Health pursuant to her answer of 16 May 2006, Official Report, column 935W, (1) what assessment she has made of the likely take up of such a scheme if financial incentives were not available for general practitioners who register and use it; [74253]
(2) on the choose and book system, what assessment she made of likely take-up of the choose and book system without the financial incentives available to GPs who register and use the system; and what definition of relevant patients her Department uses when assessing applications for aspiration payments. [74494]
Mr. Ivan Lewis: The Department strongly believes that both choice and choose and book deliver significant benefits to patients, and both primary and secondary care practitioners. The choice and booking direct enhanced service (DES) is designed to encourage general practitioner (GP) practices to proactively implement choice and the choose and book service in order to realise these benefits early, as opposed to GP practices adopting at their own pace. However, no specific assessment has been undertaken to determine what uptake would have been if financial incentives had not been made available.
In the choice component of the DES, relevant patients for aspiration payments are those referred from primary care to secondary care, where a
specialist’s opinion is needed and the current nationally agreed guidance on choice exclusions do not apply.
Consultation Costs
Mr. Stephen O'Brien: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what the cost was of the consultation on (a) primary care trust, (b) ambulance and (c) strategic health authority restructuring. [75137]
Mr. Ivan Lewis: As the consultations were led by strategic health authorities, the cost of them was financed from local national health service allocations. These figures are not collected nationally.
Dentistry
Sandra Gidley: To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) how many dentists signed the NHS General Dental Services contract in dispute, broken down by primary care trust; [64983]
(2) how many dentists have signed the new NHS dental contract in England; and how many of those have done so in dispute, broken down by primary care trust. [66072]
Ms Rosie Winterton: Information on the number of dentists who have signed the new contract and the number who have signed in dispute is not available centrally.
Provisional management estimates on the number of signed contracts and, of these, the number signed in dispute has been placed in the Library. A contract may be for either a practice or an individual dentist.
John Mann: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many dentists have left the NHS in Trent Strategic Health Authority in the last 12 months, broken down by parliamentary constituency. [69779]
Ms Rosie Winterton: At 31 March 2006, there were 1,005 dentists in the Trent Strategic Health Authority (SHA) area. The table shows the numbers of national health service dentists who have retired or otherwise left the general dental services (GDS) or personal dental services (PDS) in Trent SHA by parliamentary constituency during the 12 months ending 30 September 2005.
| Next Section | Index | Home Page |