Written Answers to Questions
Friday 2 February 2007
Health
Accident and Emergency Departments
Mr. Lansley: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what assessment she has made of the size of population a typical “super A&E” as defined by the National Director for Emergency Access on page 4 of his report Emergency access - clinical case for change, published 5 December 2006, should serve. [115021]
Andy Burnham: It is a matter for the local national health service to ensure the provision of appropriate services, including accident and emergency facilities, to meet people’s needs.
There is increasing consensus among professional bodies that a critical size of hospital is required to ensure that specialist facilities are available to treat all patients with emergency needs safely. While the actual populations hospitals will serve in the future will differ slightly across the country, in general it may be that they will need to serve larger populations than is currently the case. Different clinical specialties may also have different demands in terms of the number of cases required to maintain clinical expertise.
Air Fresheners
Norman Baker: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what recent research her Department has conducted into the impact upon (a) indoor air quality and (b) human health of the use of air fresheners. [111520]
Caroline Flint: In 1997, the Department together with the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions (DETR) commissioned a joint research programme on the effects on health of exposure to air pollutants and damp in the home. This programme focused on indoor air pollution and its effects on health. In particular, the health effects on sensitive individuals within the population and the interactions between indoor air pollutants and health effects of damp in the domestic environment. There were 13 projects in total, seven of which were funded directly by the Department. Further details of these projects can be found at table three of ‘Air Pollution Research Funded’ which is available on the Department's website at:
www.dh.gov.uk/assetRoot/04/07/06/08/04070608.pdf.
Copies have been placed in the Library.
Air freshening products contain volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and in 1997, the Department's Committee on the Medical Effects of Air Pollutants (COMEAP) was asked to consider the health effects of exposure to VOCs in the home. As part of this, COMEAP considered data collected by the Buildings
Research Establishment (BRE) on behalf of the DETR and had published a statement in their 1997-98 annual report which is available at:
www.advisorybodies.doh.gov.uk/comeap/pdfs/comeap9798.pdf.
Copies have been placed in the Library.
Barlborough Independent Sector Treatment Centre
John Mann: To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) how many post-operative excessive limb shortening complications have been dealt with by NHS hospitals involving patients initially treated at the Barlborough Independent Sector Treatment Centre in (a) 2005 and (b) 2006; [118403]
(2) what monitoring is undertaken of excessive limb shortening post-operative problems of patients from the Barlborough Independent Sector Treatment Centre. [118404]
Andy Burnham: This information is not held by the Department. Providers have a responsibility to report and investigate any incidents internally. The Department’s contract management unit monitors and, where appropriate, investigates the clinical performance of the providers. This is achieved through the scrutiny of clinical performance information, incident reports, patient satisfaction and patient complaint measures.
John Mann: To ask the Secretary of State for Health when an official from her Department last visited the Barlborough Independent Sector Treatment Centre. [118405]
Andy Burnham: David Nicholson, Chief Executive of the National Health Service, visited the Barlborough independent sector treatment centre on 15 September 2006. As part of the continued contract management, representatives from the Departments regularly visit the treatment centre, most recently on 16 January 2007.
Clostridium Difficile
Mr. Lansley: To ask the Secretary of State for Health whether she plans to introduce markers of clinical severity into the mandatory surveillance system for clostridium difficile infection. [115024]
Mr. Ivan Lewis: We do not have any plans to introduce markers of clinical severity at present.
Mr. Lansley: To ask the Secretary of State for Health whether she plans to review the guidance on the use of culture and typing within the system of mandatory surveillance for clostridium difficile infection. [115025]
Mr. Ivan Lewis: There are no plans to review the current guidance.
Compulsory Community Treatment Orders
Lynne Jones: To ask the Secretary of State for Health when she expects to publish the findings of the Institute of Psychiatry review of research on the use of compulsory community treatment orders for people with a mental disorder commissioned by her Department. [117577]
Ms Rosie Winterton: The Department has commissioned a literature review, which looks at international experiences of implementing community treatment order. We have not yet received the final report of the review from the independent researcher. We do however intend to publish the literature review as soon as we can after it is completed.
Departmental Statistics
Mrs. Villiers: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how much her Department spent on statistics relating to the work of her Department in each of the last five years. [107273]
Mr. Ivan Lewis: There is no definition of the term statistics relating to the work of the Department and no centrally held information on either the volume or costs of statistics published each year on this basis.
Estimates for the annual costs of national statistics are contained in the relevant ‘National Statistics Annual Report and Accounts’, which are available in the Library and on the National Statistics website at:
www.statistics.gov.uk/StatBase/Product.asp?vlnk=1051
The last year these were produced was 2004-05.
Departmental Travel
Mr. Heald: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what her Department's expenditure was on foreign travel, including accommodation, in (a) 1996-97 and (b) 2005-06. [114026]
Mr. Ivan Lewis: The Department's expenditure on foreign travel, including accommodation from 1996-97 to 2003-04 is shown in the following table.
| £ | |
Information in the requested form is not available as the Department is not required to report in such detail for the statutory accounts. Therefore, the information has not been collected centrally since April 2004. Although this information cannot currently be obtained without incurring disproportional costs, the Department is exploring with our contractors the provision of similar data on a regular basis in the future.
Elderly Irish Men
Chris Ruane: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what assessment she has made of the health needs of elderly Irish males living in England. [118201]
Andy Burnham:
The Department has made no specific assessment of the health needs of elderly Irish males living in the United Kingdom. The most extensive
survey on the health of minority ethnic groups ever carried out in England was published in April 2006. The 2004 “Health Survey for England” interviewed over 6,000 adults from black and minority ethnic communities including Irish communities. The report is available in the Library.
Insulin
Mr. Baron: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what assessment she has made of the (a) safety, (b) clinical effectiveness and (c) cost effectiveness of (i) animal insulins, (ii) synthetic human insulins and (iii) analogue insulins; and whether she plans to ask the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence to make an assessment of those treatments. [116458]
Mr. Ivan Lewis: All licensed insulins have been fully assessed and found to satisfy the regulatory requirements for quality, safety and efficacy. The safety of human insulins in clinical practice is continually monitored by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency and the European Medicines Agency.
Clinical guidelines produced by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) on the management of both type one and type two diabetes conclude that the majority of studies indicate that both human and animal insulins are equally effective and report no significant differences in hypoglycaemic episodes and glycaemic control between the insulin of human and animal chemical structures.
NICE produces guidance for the national health service and Wales on the clinical and cost-effectiveness of treatment and healthcare based on the latest available evidence.
London SHA
Mr. Davey: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how much has been allocated from the budget of each London primary care trust to the London Strategic Health Authority in each year since 2005. [114173]
Mr. Ivan Lewis: The table shows primary care trust (PCT) topslice to NHS London at quarter two, 2006-07. From 2006-07 we have abolished planned support and given strategic health authorities (SHAs) the ability to generate reserves from top slicing their PCT allocations. This topslicing did not occur in 2005-06.
| Organisation name | PCT topslice (£000) |
| Source: Financial monitoring returns quarter two, 2006-07. | |
NHS Trust Managers
Norman Baker: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many members of management within NHS Trusts were made redundant in 2005; what the total paid in redundancy payments was; and how many of those individuals have been subsequently re-employed within the NHS. [118417]
Ms Rosie Winterton: Redundancy data for national health service trusts was not collected centrally in 2005.
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