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Missed Appointments
Lynne Featherstone: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many missed appointments there have been in each health care trust in (a) each of the last 12 months and (b) each of the previous four years. [87311]
Andy Burnham: The information requested has been placed in the Library.
MMR Vaccinations
Tim Loughton: To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) what the MMR vaccination rate was in each primary care trust area in the last period for which figures are available; [88012]
(2) what percentage of five-year-old children have missed routine vaccinations. [88028]
Caroline Flint: Immunisation data by primary care trust, strategic health authorities and nationally is published annually in the statistical bulletin national health service immunisation statistics, England, which is available on the Department's and The Information Centre for health and social care's websites. Data are not available by local authority or by electoral ward. Links to the latest three publications are:
www.dh.gov.uk/PublicationsAndStatistics/Statistics/StatisticalWorkAreas/StatisticalHealthCare/StatisticalHealthCareArticle/fs/en?CONTENT_ID=4081007&chk=ckz8H6
www.dh.gov.uk/PublicationsAndStatistics/Statistics/StatisticalWorkAreas/StatisticalHealthCare/StatisticalHealthCareArticle/fs/en?CONTENT_ID=4099576&chk=d2n5Kj
www.dh.gov.uk/PublicationsAndStatistics/Publications/PublicationsStatistics/PublicationsStatisticsArticle/fs/en?CONTENT_ID=4119649&chk=r6rlW4
Copies have been placed in the Library.
MRSA
Mr. Graham Stuart: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many MRSA cases there have been in each hospital in Hull and East Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust area in each of the last five years; and if she will make a statement. [87673]
Andy
Burnham: The information is not available in the format
required. However, meticillin resistant
Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) figures for Hull and East Yorkshire
Hospitals National Health Services Trust are as
follows:
| Number/rate | |
The Department continues to engage those trusts facing the most significant challenges to their delivery plan, which ensures the trust meets an agreed level of reduction in MRSA bacteraemia. Here it is working with trusts most likely to benefit from tailored support. Hull and East Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust is engaged in this improvement programme, and a departmental team concluded a diagnostic assessment, and recommendations for action were due to be presented to the trust board on 25 July. The board will, with departmental support, be working up a detailed action plan to deliver the agreed reduction in MRSA cases.
David Simpson: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what percentage of cases of MRSA infection in (a) England and (b) each region resulted in a fatality in each of the last five years. [88151]
Andy Burnham: The data requested is not collected centrally.
The Office for National Statistics published figures on the number of deaths where meticillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus was mentioned on the death certificate from 1999 to 2004 in Health Statistics Quarterly 29 in spring 2006. The full paper is at:
www.statistics.gov.uk/downloads/theme_health/HSQ29.pdf.
Mr. Graham Stuart: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many cases of MRSA have been identified in hospitals in Yorkshire and the Humber in each of the last five years, broken down by national health service trust; and if she will make a statement. [88507]
Andy Burnham: The information requested is shown in the following table.
This is the first Government to introduce mandatory MRSA surveillance and this continues to be developed. An improvement programme has been introduced to provide tailored support to those trusts with the most challenging MRSA bacteraemia numbers. The objective is to assist in diagnosing those issues which prevent reduction in infections and to develop practical, robust action plans that speed-up progress and delivery. General support and shared learning is enhanced via trusts’ “Performance Improvement Network”, which has over 80 participants.
National Cancer Peer Review Programme
Tim Loughton: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how the National Cancer Peer Review teams are funded. [88040]
Ms Rosie Winterton: For 2006-07, funding for peer review is included as part of a block sum which will be made available for strategic health authorities to manage.
National Care Records System
Steve Webb: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what steps her Department is taking to ensure the protection of the rights of data subjects under the Data Protection Act 1998, in relation to the National Care Records System; to which categories of electronic information patients (a) will and (b) will not be able to restrict access; and what steps are being taken to ensure security and confidentiality of subject-identifiable data. [82329]
Caroline Flint: The Department has placed the protection of individual rights at the heart of the new national health service care records service. The Department is working closely with the Information Commissioner to ensure that the requirements of the Data Protection Act 1998 are met in full, and is sympathetic to the Commissioner’s call for increased penalties for those who misuse personal health and other information under Section 55 of the Act.
However, the Data Protection Act does not provide individuals with the right to restrict access to information where the information is processed in accordance with the principles set out in the Act. The rights of individuals to restrict access to information that relates to them stem from common law confidentiality obligations rather than the Data Protection Act.
Where information is held in confidence, the common law allows individuals to prevent information from being shared without their consent unless, exceptionally, there is a reason for sharing that requires obligations of confidentiality to be overridden. The new system of electronic care records is therefore being designed to enable patients to restrict access to information that the NHS holds in confidence. Many older NHS systems were not designed to safeguard confidentiality in this way and these will be phased out over the next few years.
A person’s right to confidentiality can, however, be overridden by statute or by a court order and, where these apply, restrictions placed on access by patients have to be set aside. Patients are not permitted to place restrictions on access to information where it is clear that to do so would put others at risk of serious harm. Also, exceptionally, patient restrictions may have to be overridden by a health professional where the public interest in sharing information outweighs obligations of confidentiality, for example in child protection cases. Where an individual’s restrictions are overridden the system will generate an alert to enable senior staff to check that the decision was appropriate and lawful.
The Department has produced what we believe is the most comprehensive privacy statement of any public service in the form of the NHS care record guarantee for England, setting out 12 commitments the NHS makes to patients in order to protect their confidentiality. A major campaign is planned to inform the public about what information the NHS keeps about them, how it is used, the safeguards in place, and their options for putting restrictions on who can access information about them.
In addition to ensuring compliance with the law, we are committed to best practice in maintaining the security and confidentiality of information systems by applying role-based access, smartcard technology and individual regulation to manage the use of NHS care records. More generally, the Department promotes the highest standards of information governance across the whole health and social care sector in the interests of all patients and clinicians.
National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence
Mr. Keetch: To ask the Secretary of State for Health whether the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence makes an estimate of the total financial impact that its technology appraisal guidance will have on the NHS in a year. [89140]
Andy Burnham: Each technology appraisal published by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence sets out the potential overall cost impact on the national health service of the recommendations.
Mr. Keetch: To ask the Secretary of State for Health whether a limit is placed on the financial impact that technology appraisal guidance from the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence may have on the NHS in relation to cancer treatments. [89141]
Andy Burnham: There is no such limit. The role of the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence is to provide the national health service with guidance on the use of health technologies based on an assessment of their clinical and cost effectiveness.
Mr. Keetch: To ask the Secretary of State for Health whether provision has been made for the funding of licensed cancer treatments being assessed by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence for which guidance is expected during 2006-07. [89142]
Andy
Burnham: Funds for the anticipated costs of guidance from
the National Institute for Health and
Clinical Excellence are included in the Department's allocation of
resources to the national health
service.
Jessica Morden: To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) whether final guidance from the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence has been (a) reversed and (b) amended as a result of an appeal; [89168]
(2) whether the final guidance issued in a technology appraisal by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence has ever significantly differed from the recommendations published in the original consultation document. [89169]
Andy Burnham: The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence's final guidance has on a number of occasions been amended as the result of either the appeal process or consultation responses.
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