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Alzheimer's Disease
Mr. Hancock: To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) if she will make it her policy to allow general practitioners to prescribe Ebixa on the NHS; [79524]
(2) what recent guidance she has issued to general practitioners on the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease in its (a) early, (b) moderate and (c) severe stages; and if she will make a statement. [79525]
Mr. Ivan Lewis: The Department has not issued any recent guidance to general practitioners on the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease in its early, moderate and severe stages and, there are no plans for the Department to issue guidance to general practitioners on prescribing Ebixa on the national health service. Until the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence issues revised guidance to the NHS, its original guidance issued in 2001 continues to apply.
Mr. Hancock: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what recent research she has (a) commissioned and (b) evaluated on the possible impact of prohibiting Ebixa on the treatment of people in the later stages of Alzheimer’s disease who have behavioural problems; and if she will make a statement. [79532]
Mr. Ivan Lewis: The Department has not commissioned and evaluated any recent research on the possible impact of prohibiting Ebixa for treatment of people in the later stages of Alzheimer’s disease who have behavioural problems. Until the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence issues revised guidance to the national health service, its original guidance issued in 2001 continues to apply.
Mr. Hancock: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what recent research she has (a) commissioned and (b) evaluated on the possible impact on carers of withdrawing Alzheimer’s drug treatments; and if she will make a statement. [79534]
Mr. Ivan Lewis: The Department has not commissioned and evaluated any recent research on the possible impact on carers of withdrawing Alzheimer’s drug treatments. Until the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence issues revised guidance to the national health service, its original guidance issued in 2001 continues to apply.
Mr. Hancock: To ask the Secretary of State for Health if she will review the decision of the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence to withdraw access to anticholinesterase drugs from patients at the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease; and if she will make a statement. [80383]
Mr. Ivan Lewis: The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) appraisal of these drugs has not yet concluded. Until NICE issues revised guidance to the national health service, its original guidance issued in 2001 continues to apply.
Asthma
Helen Jones: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what plans she has to ensure more people with asthma take-up care plans. [79447]
Mr. Ivan Lewis [holding answer 22 June 2006]: Meeting the care needs of people with long-term conditions, including better access to care plans, is a key theme of the White Paper, ‘Our Health, Our Care, Our Say’.
Departmental officials will be seeking to engage with key stakeholders in taking forward White Paper commitments around care planning and reducing emergency bed stays.
Audiology
Tim Loughton: To ask the Secretary of State for Health whether the assessment, fitting and follow-up of digital hearing aids is included in (a) payment-by-results and (b) practice based commissioning; and if she will make a statement. [78641]
Mr. Ivan Lewis: The provision of digital hearing aids is not included in payment by results because the entire digital hearing aids service is not part of the reference costs which underpin the tariff. This is due to their treatment as capitalised grouped assets.
As long as the purchase of digital hearing aids in bulk by national health service bodies is deemed to be a capital transaction, they will remain outside the reference costs collections and therefore payment by results.
Practice based commissioning gives practices greater freedom to commission services for their patients. Only core general medical services/personal medical services specialised services, services commissioned regionally and nationally, and national screening programmes are excluded from the potential scope of a practice’s indicative budget.
Autism
Mr. Lancaster: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what steps she is taking to promote early diagnosis of autism. [79398]
Mr. Ivan Lewis: The autism research co-ordination group brings together Government officials, professional bodies and voluntary sector organisations to identify gaps in research, including research on diagnosis, and advises policy makers.
The autism spectrum disorders exemplar follows a patient journey from diagnosis to transition into adult services at age 16. This exemplar illustrates some of the key themes of the children, young people and maternity services national service framework. The exemplar is intended to be useful in a number of ways, providing a multi-disciplinary training tool for staff working with children and young people to raise awareness of specific issues, including early identification, diagnosis and intervention.
The promotion of early diagnosis of autism is a matter for professional bodies.
Avon, Gloucestershire and Wiltshire Strategic Health Authority
Mr. Drew: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what meetings have taken place between the Avon, Gloucestershire and Wiltshire Strategic Health Authority (SHA) and its constituent primary health care trusts to discuss its operating framework; and when the planned savings required of each organisation within the SHA were agreed. [79652]
Caroline Flint: The Department does not collect details of meetings between strategic health authorities (SHAs) and primary care trusts (PCTs). This is a local matter for Avon, Gloucestershire and Wiltshire SHA and its PCTs.
Child and Adolescence Mental Health Services
Mr. Drew: To ask the Secretary of State for Health whether there are minimum standards for the performance of Child and Adolescence Mental Health Services. [79679]
Mr. Ivan Lewis: Improving child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) is one of the priorities for this Government, as emphasised by the public service agreement standard of a comprehensive CAMHS to be in place by December 2006. This commitment to improve CAMHS has been backed by significant additional funding, over £300 million in the last three years.
The CAMHS module of the children’s national service framework for England (September 2004) sets the framework for CAMHS for the next 10 years. It sets the standard that all children and young people, from birth to their 18th birthday, who have mental health problems and disorders, will have access to timely, integrated, high quality multidisciplinary mental health services to ensure effective assessment, treatment and support, for them, their parents or carers, and other family members.
Choose and Book
Mr. Graham Stuart: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what estimate she has made of the number of patients who have been referred to an inappropriate doctor in secondary care under the choose and book system; and if she will make a statement. [67119]
Mr. Ivan Lewis: National data on the number of rejected referrals and the reasons for these such as inappropriate referral are not centrally collected. However, these data are available at an organisational level, for example within general practitioner practices and acute trusts. In future, it is intended that national level data will be collected through the secondary uses service and plans are currently being developed.
Some choose and book referrals, in addition to some non-choose and book referrals, are rejected. Referrals are usually rejected either when referrers have selected inappropriate services or when providers have not given sufficient detail about the services they offer. These rejections are not linked to the information technology system, as choose and book enables providers to describe their services in sufficient detail to allow referrers to identify the appropriate service, and to regularly review and update their descriptions based on feedback.
Mr. Stephen O'Brien: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many appointments on the Choose and Book system (a) require the use of the telephone and (b) have the option of using the telephone to book the appointment. [75310]
Mr. Ivan Lewis: The option of booking by telephone is available for all appointments booked through the Choose and Book service.
Where service providers have a patient administration system which is compliant with the Choose and Book application, services are directly bookable and appointment slots may be booked electronically without requiring the use of the telephone.
About a third of the referrals currently made by general practitioners are being made through the directly bookable services.
Mr. Stephen O'Brien: To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) whether the latest figures for the use of the Choose and Book system are derived (a) from the system's generation of a unique booking reference number and (b) from the booking of an appointment; and if she will make a statement; [75311]
(2) whether the latest figures for the use of the Choose and Book system are for those appointments which are made entirely electronically and have not involved the patient or general practitioner in using the telephone; and if she will make a statement. [75312]
Mr. Ivan Lewis: In May 2006, about 116,000 referrals were made through the Choose and Book service, which was an increase of approximately 46,000 on the April 2006 figure. These include referrals to outpatient services and clinical assessment services where bookings were made, but excludes re-bookings.
The Department does not centrally collect data on the generation of unique booking reference numbers.
Entirely electronic bookings may be made in the general practitioner's (GP) surgery or via the Internet, where services are directly bookable. No information is collected on how many bookings to directly bookable services were made by telephone, either from within the GP surgery or later by the patient.
Andrew George: To ask the Secretary of State for Health pursuant to the answer of 8 May 2006, Official Report, columns 634W on the choose and book system, what budget had been set for the (a) choice and (b) choose and book anticipated costs (i) for administrative and other staff, (ii) incurred by consultants and acute trusts, (iii) for other computer software and hardware not directly associated with the NHS Connecting for Health Agency and (iv) for other administration infrastructure for each year the programme was budgeted to operate. [73256]
Mr. Ivan Lewis: Local budget setting is a matter for individual primary care trusts, acute trusts and strategic health authorities.
Continuing Care
Mr. Stephen O'Brien: To ask the Secretary of State for Health whether individuals receiving NHS funded continuing care will be reassessed under the new criteria. [79646]
Mr. Ivan Lewis: The consultation on an improved national framework for continuing care was launched on 19 June 2006. We cannot anticipate what the new framework will be until the consultation is completed and we have considered all responses.
Sandra Gidley: To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) how many people met the eligibility criteria for continuing NHS health care in each of the last six years; and how many met the criteria at the latest date for which figures are available; [79268]
(2) how many people left continuing NHS health care in each of the last six years; [79269]
(3) how many residents in nursing homes were fully funded by the NHS under continuing care criteria in each year since 1997; [79271]
(4) how many people have been granted recompense for being wrongly denied fully-funded national health service continuing care in each of the last 10 years; and what the aggregate cost of that recompense was; [79273]
(5) how many people have contacted the Health Service Ombudsman regarding their failure to receive continuing care funding for a relative in each year since 1997. [79274]
Mr. Ivan Lewis: Information on the number of people newly eligible national health service continuing care, which has been collected by the Department since 2002-03, is shown in table 1.
| Table 1: People newly meeting eligibility criteria for continuing care | |
| Number | |
| Source: LDPR line 8229 | |
NHS continuing care can be provided in any setting, including a care home or an individual’s own home. The Department does not collect information on the settings in which NHS continuing care is received. Information on the total number of people receiving NHS continuing care is shown in table 2.
| Table 2: People receiving continuing care | |
| Number | |
| Source: LDPR line 8228 | |
Information on the number of people who ceased to require NHS continuing care is not held centrally.
Of the 11,655 requests for investigations received by 31 March 2004, 86.1 per cent. had been investigated, with 1,796 being found eligible for restitution. No later data is available. We expect that the NHS will pay around £180 million in restitution. The Department does not collect data about the number of people who subsequently took cases to the Health Ombudsman. The Health Ombudsman is entirely independent of the Department and questions should be addressed directly to Ann Abraham.
Cost of Care Analysis
Mr. Stephen O'Brien: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many local authorities have undergone an independent cost of care analysis on which to base local fee negotiations with independent and third sector care providers. [79647]
Mr. Ivan Lewis: The information requested is not available centrally.
The
principles for contracting for care services set out in building
capacity and partnerships in care (BCPC)
are: fairness to service-users, to taxpayers and
service providers; and the encouragement of fair competition. The BCPC
is available on the Department’s website at:
www.doh.gov.uk/assetRoot/04/05/36/33/04053633.pdf
Dementia (Residential Care)
Mrs. Iris Robinson: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many residential care places are available for individuals with early onset dementia. [77230]
Mr. Ivan Lewis: I understand from the chair of the Commission for Social Care Inspection, which registers, inspects and regulates care homes, that the information is not collected in the format requested. At 31 March 2006, there were 5,162 care homes registered under the categories of dementia or dementia (elderly), with 192,833 care places.
Departmental Staff
Mr. Stephen O'Brien: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many full-time equivalent posts have been moved from her Department to the private sector in each year since 1997. [79655]
Mr. Ivan Lewis: This information is not held centrally at the Department.
Diagnostic Treatment (Independent Sector)
Mr. Lansley: To ask the Secretary of State for Health if she will make a statement on the recent progress with her Department's plans to procure extra capacity in diagnostics from the independent sector. [79045]
Mr. Ivan Lewis: Invitations to negotiate have now been issued for all seven of the regional diagnostics schemes of the phase two procurement. Preferred bidders are expected to be appointed by August with services starting next year.
Foundation Trusts
Steve Webb: To ask the Secretary of State for Health which foundation trusts have (a) opt-in membership arrangements and (b) opt-out membership arrangements; in how many cases in each trust there have been contested elections to the governing body; what the turnout was at each; and what the (i) dates and (ii) results of these elections were. [78111]
Mr. Ivan Lewis: National health service foundation trusts (NHSFTs) are free to decide their own membership arrangements provided that their constitutions meet the requirements set out in schedule 1 to the Health and Social Care (Community Health and Standards) Act 2003. I am advised by the chairman of Monitor, whose statutory name is the independent regulator of NHSFTs, that all NHSFT constitutions are publicly available on Monitor's website at www.monitor-nhsf.gov.uk.
Information relating to the elections to the governing bodies of individual NHSFTs can be obtained by contacting the chairmen of the respective trusts.
General Practitioners (Romford)
Andrew Rosindell: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many general practitioners per head of population there are in Romford, Essex. [79627]
Mr. Ivan Lewis: The table shows the numbers of general medical practitioners per 100,000 head of population for Havering Primary Care Trust at 30 September 2004-05, which are the latest figures available.
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