Previous Section Index Home Page

19 July 2007 : Column 622W—continued

Departments: Disciplinary Proceedings

David Simpson: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many people in his Department have been (a) disciplined and (b) dismissed for (i) inappropriate use of the internet while at work and (ii) using work telephones to access premium rate telephone numbers in the last 12 months. [149191]

Dawn Primarolo: Two departmental employees have been subject to disciplinary action for internet misuse, neither was dismissed.

We also had two cases of disciplinary action involving temporary contractors. In each case, the contract was terminated immediately.

The Department has blocked calls to all premium numbers.

Departments: Public Appointments

Sandra Gidley: To ask the Secretary of State for Health whether he has any plans to reorganise the system of health tsars. [150277]

Dawn Primarolo: There are no plans to reorganise the system of national clinical directors (health tsars) in the Department.

Departments: Publicity

David Simpson: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what assessment he has made of the cost effectiveness of advertising commissioned by his Department in the last 12 months. [148500]

Dawn Primarolo: The Department has run a number of advertising campaigns during the previous 12 months in the drive to improve public health. In some instances these are part of longer-term campaigns to address particular issues, e.g. smoking cessation, and some are tactical campaigns, e.g. flu immunisation.

Where long-term campaigns are involved, evaluation techniques are used to measure current performance against pre-determined targets, and to benchmark against previous campaigns. By so doing the department can aim to improve the effectiveness of future campaigns. This is consistent with the recommended principles of the Engage planning framework, which is designed to improve the quality and effectiveness of government campaigns.


19 July 2007 : Column 623W

Where campaigns have short-term tactical targets, evaluation is also specifically undertaken to ensure response levels are achieved through the most effective deployment of media, and once more to inform future planning for similar activities. Examples of these two campaign approaches follow.

Depending on the nature of the task, the department uses appropriate industry-wide recognised measures to determine the success and cost effectiveness of the campaign. The Central Office of Information is often involved in the campaign development process and these measures are also used by them to measure campaign success levels. The measures chosen will include some of the following elements:

Example of long-term campaign evaluation

Using these measures, some of the top line results from recent tobacco campaigns since September 2006 are as follows:

Motivations That Matter (September 2006)

Hook/Send Off (January to March 2007)

Direct Response:

During the Hook/Send Off campaign 83,606 people phoned the NHS Smoking Helpline, 545,564 people visited the gosmokefree website and 195,000 people interacted with the interactive TV pages (total of 824,170 responses).


19 July 2007 : Column 624W

Secondhand Smoke (March 2007)

Example of tactical campaign evaluation:

The flu immunisation communications campaign has been run annually since 2000. The advertising has been evaluated by pre and post campaigns surveys of the target audiences to measure changes in spontaneous and prompted recall and recognition of the advertising, propensity to get the jab, the relative cost effectiveness of the different media, take-up of campaign materials, and ultimately, take-up of the jab.

In 2006 the research indicated that, compared to 2005, the advertising had achieved:

Take-up of the campaign materials by the national health service was 2.8 million items.

The campaign contributed a take-up of the vaccine of 74 per cent. among the over-65s in 2006 (65.3 per cent. in 2000-01), towards the World Health Organization target of 75 per cent. by 2010.

Departments: Racial Harassment

David Simpson: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many complaints of racial abuse relating to staff for which his Department is responsible have been (a) investigated and (b) upheld in the last 12 months. [149252]

Dawn Primarolo: During the last 12 months (for the period July 2006 to July 2007) the Department has received no official complaints of racial abuse.

Drugs: Advisory Services

Tim Loughton: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many children have used the Talk to Frank helpline in each year since it was set up. [150371]

Dawn Primarolo: The number of children who have contacted the Talk to Frank Helpline from 2004-05 are shown in the following table.


19 July 2007 : Column 625W
2004-05 2005-06 2006-07 Total

Under 16

4,237

5,917

4,444

14,598

16 to 25

11,629

14,136

14,974

40,739


Tim Loughton: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what assessment he has made of the reasons for calls to the Talk to Frank helpline, broken down by substance abuse type. [150372]

Dawn Primarolo: From April 2006 to March 2007, the main reason (72.60 per cent.) for calls to the Talk to Frank helpline was to ask for information on individual substances. This reflects an increase of 6.3 per cent. compared to 2005-06. Further details of caller requirements are contained in the following table.

Caller requirements Percentage

Information given

72.60

National referral

14.24

Local referral

6.33

Literature

5.78

Campaign specific

0.67

Query complaint

0.38


Of the calls requesting information, queries on Cannabis accounted for the majority of calls. They ranged from simple questions about the effects and general usage to more complex queries regarding the link between cannabis use and mental health. These queries were a result of increased media attention.

Cocaine was the second most frequently discussed topic. Again these ranged from simple questions about the effects and risks of taking cocaine to more complex queries on how to cut down/reduce intake, and drug detection/testing.

Further details showing a breakdown on individual substance/topic are contained in the following table.


19 July 2007 : Column 626W
Information advice topic Percentage

Cannabis general

20.51

Cocaine

14.77

Drugs (not specific)

13.38

Heroin

8.76

Drug detection and testing

6.48

Other

6.45

Ecstasy

4.65

Amphetamines

3.17

Crack

3.13

Mental health-related

2.72

Alcohol

2.33

Methadone

1.98

Legal-related

0.88

Information on FRANK

0.86

Misuse of other drugs

0.74

Volatile substances

0.74

Detoxification

0.73

Other Opiates

0.73

Anabolic Steroids

0.68

Ketamine

0.68

LSD

0.62

Cannabis reclassification

0.50

Pregnancy-related

0.50

Medicinal use of drugs

0.44

Other benzodiazepines

0.44

Alkyl nitrates

0.36

Hallucinogenic mushrooms

0.34

Tobacco

0.30

Crystal Meth/Methamphetamine

0.30

Sexual behaviour-related

0.28

GHB

0.27

Temazepam

0.24

Rohypnol

0.20

Hepatitis C

0.14

Employment-related (other than testing)

0.13

Financial-related

0.12

HIV-related

0.10

Herbal highs

0.10

Housing-related

0.07

PCP

0.06

Viagra

0.05

Ice

0.04

Khat

0.03


Next Section Index Home Page