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4 Sep 2006 : Column 2185W—continued
| OPCS codes for identifying hip replacement operations | |
| Code | |
Mr. Lansley: To ask the Secretary of State for Health pursuant to her answer of 13 July 2006, Official Report, columns 2086-88W, on waiting times/lists, if she will make a statement on the differences between the averages given by the Korner aggregate returns and those given by the Hospital Episode Statistics. [87690]
Andy Burnham: A detailed analysis of the differences between the hospital episode statistics and Korner waiting times can be found in a Health Statistics Quarterly article at the following address: www.statistics.gov.uk/articles/hsq/HSQ24waiting-time.pdf.
A copy of the report has been placed in the Library.
Welfare Food Scheme
Dr. Kumar: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many pregnant women in (a) England, (b) the Tees Valley and (c) Middlesbrough, South and East Cleveland have participated in the welfare food scheme since 2001. [87972]
Caroline Flint: The number of pregnant women in England who have received either milk tokens or healthy start vouchers since November 2004 is 111,422. Prior to November 2004, routine information on milk tokens was not collected centrally.
Data is not collected by constituency or district, therefore the information requested for Tees Valley or Middlesbrough, South and East Cleveland would be available only at disproportionate cost.
Jeff Ennis: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many pregnant women have participated in the welfare food scheme in (a) Barnsley and (b) Doncaster since 2001. [88377]
Caroline Flint: Data relating to recipients of welfare food is not collated by constituency or district. Therefore, figures relating specifically to Barnsley or Doncaster would be available only at disproportionate cost.
Yellow Card Reporting System
Mr. Burstow: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many adverse reaction reports were received through the yellow card reporting system for (a) all anti-psychotic drugs, (b) traditional anti-psychotic drugs and (c) atypical anti-psychotic drugs in 2005; and how many prescriptions there were for each type of drug for those aged (i) 50 to 64, (ii) 65 to 74 and (iii) 75 years and over. [88965]
Andy Burnham:
The yellow card scheme is the United Kingdom system for collecting and monitoring information on suspected adverse drug reactions (ADRs). The scheme is run by the Medicines and
Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) and the commission on human medicines (CHM). The scheme relies upon voluntary reporting of suspected ADRs by health professionals. Marketing authorisation holders are legally obliged to report any serious suspected adverse reaction that comes to their attention to the MHRA/CHM.
The following tables contain the number of suspected ADR reports received via the UK yellow card scheme for (a) all anti-psychotic drugs, (b) traditional anti-psychotic drugs and (c) atypical anti-psychotic drugs in 2005; together with the estimated number of prescriptions written in the community in the UK for the 12 months ending 31 March 2006.
| Table 1: Number of suspected ADR reports UK 2005 | |||
| Age group | All anti-psychotic drugs | Traditional anti-psychotic drugs | Atypical anti-psychotic drugs |
| Table 2: Estimated number of prescriptions written in the community between 1 April 2005 and 31 March 2006 | |||
| Age group | All anti-psychotic drugs | Traditional anti-psychotic drugs | Atypical anti-psychotic drugs |
It is important to note that a report of an adverse reaction does not necessarily mean that it was caused by the drug. Many factors have to be taken into account in assessing causal relationships including temporal association, the possible contribution of concomitant medication and the underlying disease. Other factors such as the time since a drug was first marketed, media interest, the reason for prescribing or regulatory action can also influence the frequency of reporting. This means that reporting rates based on numbers of spontaneous reports and numbers of prescriptions are not true measures of the frequency of reactions or the ideal basis for comparisons between drug substances or classes. For these reasons, no firm conclusions can be drawn from a possibly higher reporting rate in 2005, of suspected adverse reactions with the more recently marketed atypical anti-psychotics, based on yellow card data, compared to more traditional anti-psychotics.
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