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20 Mar 2007 : Column 881W—continued
| January to December 2005 | |||
| Maghaberry | Magilligan | Hydebank | |
| January to December 2006 | |||
| Maghaberry | Magilligan | Hydebank | |
Firearms: Crime
Lady Hermon: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what recent estimate he has made of the number of illegally-held weapons in circulation in Northern Ireland. [123538]
Paul Goggins: As any estimate about the number of illegally-held weapons in Northern Ireland would be based on intelligence, it would be inappropriate to publish this information.
Hospitals: Waiting Lists
Lady Hermon: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will make a statement on the progress being made towards the Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety waiting times targets within each health trust area in Northern Ireland; and whether he expects the targets to be met in each case. [128130]
Paul Goggins: I have set targets that, by the end of March 2007, no patient should be waiting more than six months for a first consultant-led outpatient appointment and no more than six months for inpatient or daycase treatment.
All trusts have made excellent progress since April 2006 and I am confident that both targets will be achieved at the end of March.
Lady Hermon: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many people died whilst waiting for treatment on the NHS in Northern Ireland in each of the last six years, broken down by health trust area; and what the length of wait was in each case. [128133]
Paul Goggins: The information requested is not available.
Macular Degeneration
Mark Durkan: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many people in Northern Ireland (a) have wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD), (b) were diagnosed with wet AMD in each of the last five years and (c) he estimates will be diagnosed with wet AMD in the next 12 months. [126320]
Paul Goggins: The information is as follows:
(a) The Department does not collect figures on the number of people who have wet age-related macular degeneration in Northern Ireland.
(b) The number of people diagnosed with wet age-related macular degeneration is not available. Information is available only on the number of admissions(1) to hospital, where the patient had a diagnosis of wet age-related macular degeneration.
The following table shows the number of admissions(1) in Northern Ireland, during each year between 2001-02 and 2005-06 (the latest year for which figures are available), where at least one of the diagnoses was wet age-related macular degeneration.
| Admissions( 1) | |
| (1) Discharges and deaths are used as an approximation to admissions. Source: Hospital In-patient System. | |
The only treatment currently available to patients suffering from wet age-related macular degeneration on the NHS is photodynamic therapy. Patients for whom photodynamic therapy is not appropriate have two options:
1. They can be reviewed as out-patients because they may become eligible for photodynamic therapy should their condition change; and
2. They will be offered low vision support—for example, fitted with specialist glasses.
Other drug therapies do exist which are yet to be approved by NICE and financially approved by commissioners.
(c) The number of people who will be diagnosed with wet age-related macular degeneration in the next 12 months is not available.
Motor Vehicles: Northern Ireland
Mr. Gregory Campbell: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland whether the criteria used to determine the location of mobile vehicle licence detection units take account of the estimated rate of licence evasion in various parts of Northern Ireland. [120874]
David Cairns: Driver and Vehicle Licensing Northern Ireland (DVLNI) treats Northern Ireland as one area for the detection of unlicensed vehicles and the vehicle excise duty evasion rate is given for Northern Ireland as a whole.
However, DVLNI does consider evidence in respect of the unlicensed database, the continuous registration database and detections from previous deployments, which is collated. This is used to identify areas where it is felt the automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) vehicles would be effective and work rotas are drawn up accordingly.
Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland
Mr. Pickles: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what use Ordnance Survey Northern Ireland makes of (a) variography and (b) pictometry techniques. [120788]
Maria Eagle: Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland makes no use of either technique.
Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland currently has a reseller agreement with the Somerset-based UK agent for pictometry and, as part of that agreement, holds a sample dataset of the North Down area of Northern Ireland for demonstration purposes.
Mr. Pickles:
To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what satellite photography Ordnance
Survey Northern Ireland has (a) used and (b) purchased in the last five years; and what high resolution satellites were used. [120790]
Maria Eagle: The information is as follows:
(a) In the last five years Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland has used 10 and 20 metre resolution (captured in 1990) and five metre resolution (captured in 2000) satellite photography as background imagery to assist in creating land use datasets for use within the MOLAND spatial indicators project.
(b) Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland purchased the 1990 photography in 2005. The 2000 photography is owned by the Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission and was provided, under licence, to Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland for the duration of the project.
Spot satellites were used for the 1990 10 and 20 metre resolution photography and the IRS (Indian Remote Sensing) satellite was used for the 2000 five metre resolution photography.
Mr. Pickles: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what the (a) purpose and (b) function is of the Ordnance Survey Northern Ireland’s STAR computer system. [120860]
Maria Eagle: The information is as follows:
(a) The purpose of Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland’s (OSNI) STAR (System for Tracking AceMap Requests) System is to record, in a central computerised system, all ground changes relevant to the updating of OSNI large scale mapping and to track the progress of the surveying of those changes and their addition to the OSNI topographic database.
STAR has been provided to a number of OSNI key customers in order that they can input notifications of change, query the progress of OSNI surveying relevant to their business needs, and perform limited spatial queries.
(b) The system records notification of ground changes, such as new housing development, on a map background. Notifications can be added by OSNI staff and/or users of OSNI mapping such as the Land Registers of Northern Ireland (LRNI) either from local knowledge, new address information supplied by the local authorities or from aerial photography within the STAR system. The recorded information is used by OSNI managers to allocate work to the OSNI survey teams and to track the progress of that work. Customers such as LRNI can also monitor any requests for map updates that they submit using the system. STAR also provides several map query tools that enable users to take measurements such as distance and area from the underlying OSNI large-scale mapping.
Mr. Pickles: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what maximum or highest resolution of aerial photography Ordnance Survey Northern Ireland holds for any part of Northern Ireland. [120867]
Maria Eagle: The highest resolution aerial photography that Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland holds for any part of Northern Ireland is 1:5,000 scale.
Mr. Pickles: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many aerial photographs Ordnance Survey Northern Ireland has (a) purchased and (b) taken in-house in each of the last five years. [120789]
Maria Eagle: The information is as follows:
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