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14 July 2006 : Column 2164W—continued
Ministerial Meetings
Mr. Amess: To ask the Secretary of State for Health if she will place in the Library the record of discussions made by her officials of her recent meeting with representatives of the Roman Catholic Church; and if she will make a statement. [85123]
Caroline Flint: I refer the hon. Member to the reply given on 4 July 2006, Official Report, column 975W.
National School Fruit Scheme
Rosie Cooper: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what percentage of fruit supplied to schools in West Lancashire under the National Fruit Scheme was sourced from (a) suppliers within 25 miles of the school supplied, (b) national suppliers and (c) overseas suppliers, over the period September 2004 to September 2005. [83659]
Ms Rosie Winterton: From September 2004 to 2005 schools in West Lancashire received fruit and vegetables under the school fruit and vegetable scheme from two distribution depots located in Wigan and Skelmersdale. Five United Kingdom based suppliers supplied eight different types of fruit and vegetables to the depots. We do not collect information about the distance of suppliers in relation to the schools they supply. No overseas suppliers are participating in the school fruit and vegetable scheme.
New Critical Care Hospital (St. Helier)
Sir Paul Beresford: To ask the Secretary of State for Health when she will reply to the response from the Epsom and St. Helier hospital trust to her announcement that the new critical care hospital will be built on the St. Helier site. [85314]
Caroline Flint: The Department has received the response from the local national health service on St. Helier and is currently considering the situation.
NHS Professionals
Mr. Baron: To ask the Secretary of State for Health who pays the superannuation of temporary staff supplied through NHS Professionals to NHS trusts. [84710]
Andy Burnham [holding answer 12 July 2006]: National health service employees are entitled to access to the NHS pension scheme.
NHS Professionals recover the costs of the employer’s contribution to the NHS pension scheme from the employing trust.
Nurses
Andrew Rosindell: To ask the Secretary of State for Health for what reason there are active programmes recruiting people for training as a nurse abroad. [79634]
Ms Rosie Winterton: The Government do not actively recruit nursing students from overseas to train in the national health service. Admissions criteria for nursing courses are the responsibility of individual higher education institutions.
Rosie Cooper: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many nurses work in NHS hospitals in the West Lancashire primary care trust area; and how many of them were employed via agencies in the last period for which figures are available. [83447]
Ms Rosie Winterton: In September 2005, Southport and Ormskirk hospital national health service trust employed 868 qualified nurses (headcount).
Information on the number of nurses employed via agencies is not held centrally.
Source:
The Information Centre for health and social care, non-medical workforce census
Nut Allergies
Mr. Hoyle: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what assessment she has made of the reasons for the trend in the number of people suffering from a nut allergy. [84265]
Mr. Ivan Lewis: Studies suggest that the prevalence of food allergy in the United Kingdom may be increasing, especially in children, in line with the general increase in allergic diseases. There are many possible explanations for the apparent rise and there is currently no definitive answer. The Food Standards Agency is currently funding several studies aimed at identifying the prevalence of individual food allergies, including nut allergy. These projects should also give clues as to the possible reasons for the apparent rise in food allergy. The first of these studies is expected to be published in the scientific literature later this year and the second is part of a larger Europe-wide study on food allergy prevalence and factors that influence development of food allergy and will finish in July 2009.
Out-patient Appointments
Rosie Cooper: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many out-patient appointments have been booked by GPs in West Lancashire since April 2005. [84885]
Ms Rosie Winterton: The information is shown in the following table.
Physiotherapists
Tom Brake: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many physiotherapists were working in the NHS in each year since 1997. [81804]
Ms Rosie Winterton: The number of qualified physiotherapists employed in the national health service in England has increased by 5,754 or 40 per cent. since September 1997 which is shown in the following table.
| England | |
| Headcount | |
| Source: The Information Centre for Health and Social Care, non-medical workforce census | |
Primary Care Trusts
Mr. Stephen O'Brien: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what percentage of its Directed Enhanced Services budget allocation each primary care trust (a) received and (b) spent in 2005-06. [70129]
Ms Rosie Winterton: The 2005-06 budget allocations made to primary care trusts (PCTs) do not separately identify the directed enhanced service (DES) amounts. However, information on 2005-06 DES spend, based on latest available PCT forecasts, has been placed in the Library. These figures are provisional and unaudited.
Private Sector Provision
Mr. Stephen O'Brien: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what percentage of healthcare provision in England is provided by the private sector. [75145]
Mr. Ivan Lewis: In 2004-05 expenditure on the purchase of healthcare from non-NHS bodies was £3.666 billion, approximately 5 per cent. of the total national health service budget but that excludes longstanding arrangements relating to the general medical, pharmaceutical and optical services and the purchasing of pharmaceutical products and medical devices from the private sector.
Psychiatric Care
Mr. Rogerson: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many psychiatric patients were discharged from in-patient care in each year since 1990. [83377]
Ms Rosie Winterton: The number of psychiatric patients discharged from in-patient care by the national health service in England for each year between 1997-98 and 2004-05 is shown in the following table.
Information about other years is not available.
| NHS patients in England discharged from inpatient care with primary diagnosis of a psychiatric condition between 1997-98 and 2004-05 | |
| Number | |
| Notes: 1. A patient discharge episode, where the patient is discharged from hospital, includes transfers to other hospitals and patient deaths, where applicable. 2. The primary diagnosis is the first of up to 14 (seven prior to 2002-03) diagnosis fields in the HES data set and provides the main reason why the patient was in hospital. The data do not represent patient numbers because an individual may have more than one episode of care within the same year. 3. The term psychiatric condition is all diagnoses as defined by the international classification of mental and behavioural disorders (ICD-10) codes F00-F99. Source: Hospital Episode Statistics (HES), The Information Centre for Health and Social Care. | |
Reproductive Health
Mr. Amess: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many prescriptions of the morning-after pill were issued in each primary care trust area in each year since 1993, broken down by age of patient. [81277]
Caroline Flint: The information on the number of prescriptions for emergency hormonal contraception prescribed by general practitioner practices in each primary care trust has been placed in the Library. Data by complete years are not available prior to 2002 and it is not possible to break the data down by age.
The data on emergency hormonal contraception dispensed by family planning clinics could be provided only at disproportionate cost.
Skin Cancer
Mrs. James: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what assessment her Department has made of the use of photodynamic therapy in skin cancer treatment; and if she will make a statement. [84495]
Ms Rosie Winterton:
It is not the role of the Department to assess the relative costs and patient benefits of this or other treatments. The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) has been set up to issue
clinical guidance to the national health service including: interventional procedure guidance to assess if a procedure is safe for routine use in the NHS; technology appraisals to assess if a treatment is clinically and cost effective; clinical guidelines to advise on the diagnosis and management of certain conditions; and, cancer service guidance to advise on how services should be organised to ensure good outcomes for patients.
In February 2006, as part of its programme of work on interventional procedures, NICE issued guidance on the use of photodynamic therapy (PDT) in the treatment of non-melanoma skin tumours. It noted that the procedure was generally safe and did not cause major problems although, in theory, it could start off cancerous changes in the skin. NICE also stated that patients need to understand the risks of this treatment before they agree to have PDT and that further treatment may be necessary.
Also in February 2006, NICE published guidance on “Improving Outcomes for people with skin tumours, including melanoma”. This guidance includes recommendations on the management of patients with suspected precancerous or cancerous skin lesions. It describes PDT including the advantages and disadvantages of this type of treatment and notes that, at present, there is little information available on long-term cure rates. It does however recommend that a number of surgical and non-surgical procedures for the treatment of skin cancer, including PDT, should be available for use by clinicians in relevant teams, subject to locally agreed standards of competence.
Mrs. James: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what proportion of the NHS treatment of skin cancer is undertaken with the use of photodynamic therapy. [84496]
Ms Rosie Winterton: The Department does not collect information centrally on the proportion of national health service treatment of skin cancer undertaken with the use of photodynamic therapy (PDT).
However, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence has issued guidance on the use of PDT in the NHS as part its programme of work on interventional procedures. NICE also addressed the use of PDT in its guidance on “Improving Outcomes for people with skin tumours, including melanoma”.
Both pieces of guidance were published in February 2006 and can be found on NICE's website.
Social Services Care
Mr. Hollobone: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what the Department's recommended criteria are for the categorisation of the level and extent of care required by each recipient in relation to social services care provided by local authorities. [84878]
Mr. Ivan Lewis: The Department’s recommended criteria to local authorities on setting of eligibility criteria for provision of services to all adults seeking social care support is set out in the “Fair Access to Care Services Guidance on Eligibility Criteria for Adult Social Care” which is available on the Department's website at: www.dh.gov.uk/assetRoot/04/01/96/41/04019641.pdf.
The guidance prioritises the risks faced by individuals into four bands, critical, substantial, moderate and low, and requires councils to adopt these bands in determining the criteria.
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