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29 Nov 2007 : Column 713W—continued
Changes to the Medical Act 1983 were made following consultation, which ended in January 2006. The Department consulted extensively on the changes to the Act between 1 October 2005 and 31 January 2006 and the legislation went through Parliament in July 2006. We have implemented the provisions at the first opportunity.
Mr. Stephen O'Brien: To ask the Secretary of State for Health whether the Medical Act 1983 (Approved Medical Practices and Conditions of Residence) Regulations 2005 (S.I., 2005, No. 2413) applies to foundation year (a) 1 and (b) 2 junior doctors. [164582]
Ann Keen: The Medical Act 1983 (Approved Medical Practices and Conditions of Residence) Regulations 2005 lapsed from 1 August 2007. Therefore, the 2005 Regulations are no longer in force.
Mr. Stephen O'Brien: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what guidance he has given to NHS trusts on charging junior doctors for hospital-owned accommodation. [164583]
Ann Keen: Guidance already exists within the terms and conditions of employment for junior doctors on the application of charges for accommodation provided through hospital channels. It was not considered necessary to issue further guidance for doctors already covered by existing contractual provisions as the change to the Medical Act did not alter their situation in respect of tax or rental charges.
Mr. Stephen O'Brien: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what consultation he has had with junior doctors on the removal of the statutory responsibility of trusts to require junior doctors to reside on site. [164587]
Ann Keen: The Medical Act 1983 made it a requirement of provisional registration with the General Medical Council for junior doctors to live in accommodation supplied by the hospital or conveniently nearby to where he was employed. The Department held meetings on the provision of accommodation with the Junior Doctors Committee in March 2004, August 2004 and March 2005 prior to the consultation on the changes to the law between October 2005 and January 2006.
Emergency Calls: Ambulance Services
Mr. Boris Johnson: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what the average time taken to respond to an emergency telephone call by the ambulance service was in (a) England, (b) London and (c) each London borough in each year since 1997. [166941]
Mr. Bradshaw: The information requested is not collected centrally.
The ambulance response time data that are collected, and which include the number of emergency calls received by ambulance trusts across England and their performances against the targets set, are published annually. The latest statistical bulletin, ‘Ambulance Services, England, 2006-07’ was published in June 2007. A copy is available in the Library.
Eyesight: Testing
Mr. Jamie Reed: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many children under the age of 16 years have received free NHS eye tests in (a) Cumbria and (b) Copeland in the last five years. [163016]
Ann Keen: Information on children aged 15 or under receiving free national health service sight tests will be available at primary care trust level in the publication ‘General Ophthalmic Services: Activity Statistics for England and Wales: April to September 2007’. This will be published by March 2008.
General Practitioners: Private Sector
Ben Chapman: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what assessment he has made of the extent of private companies' co-operation with general practitioners on service configuration. [169196]
Ann Keen: None. Proposals for the reconfiguration of services are a matter for the national health service locally, working in conjunction with clinicians, patients and other stakeholders.
Ben Chapman: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what his policy is on the engagement of general practitioners in private healthcare facilities; and if he will make a statement. [169197]
Mr. Bradshaw: It is a personal matter for general practitioners and private providers of healthcare facilities to determine their contractual arrangements in delivery of non-national health service services.
Health Services: Foreigners
David T.C. Davies:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health what estimate he has made of the amount spent
by the NHS each year on providing NHS outpatient care for non-EU citizens. [168135]
Dawn Primarolo: It is not possible to provide the information requested. Successive Governments have not required the national health service to provide statistics on the number of foreign nationals seen, treated or charged under the provisions of the National Health Service (Charges to Overseas Visitors) Regulations 1989, as amended, nor any costs involved.
Health Services: Immigrants
Lynne Jones: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what (a) health and (b) financial impact assessments he has made of charging refused asylum seekers or other undocumented migrants for NHS care; and if he will make a statement. [167762]
Dawn Primarolo: Charging refused asylum seekers and other undocumented migrants for national health service hospital treatment has been in place for over 18 years. In conjunction with the Home Office, the Department is currently reviewing access by foreign nationals to NHS healthcare. The review is looking at a range of asylum and immigration issues as well as public health and humanitarian concerns.
Charging overseas visitors for hospital treatment is not merely about the protection of scarce NHS resources. Equally important is the protection of the principle that the NHS exists primarily for those people who are living on a legal and settled basis in the United Kingdom, not those who are not.
Hearing Impaired: Health Services
Jon Trickett: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many people are waiting for hearing tests in (a) England, (b) West Yorkshire, (c) Hemsworth constituency, (d) Mid Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust and (e) Pontefract Primary Care Trust; what steps are being taken to reduce the numbers of people waiting; and if he will make a statement. [167920]
Mr. Ivan Lewis: The available information is shown in the following table.
| Waits for audiology assessments in requested organisations—September 2007 | ||||
| Organisation/area | Audiology assessments: total waiting | Audiology assessments: number waiting 6+ weeks | Audiology assessments: number waiting 13+ weeks | Audiology assessments: number waiting 26+ weeks |
| Notes: 1. Only information on audiological assessments is collected. Audiology assessments include hearing tests, which cannot be separately identified. 2. Pontefract has no primary care trust (PCT) but is part of Wakefield PCT. Source: Diagnostic Monthly Monitoring (DM01) | ||||
As part of the process to address the challenges in audiology services the Department, working with key stakeholders, developed the national audiology framework, ‘Improving Access to Audiology Services in England’, which was published in March 2007. Since the publication of the framework a number of key steps have already been implemented; we have improved the data on audiology by collecting monthly data of all audiology assessments together with a quarterly census of waits for all diagnostic tests, including audiology. We are also currently piloting the collection of referral to treatment times for all direct access referrals into audiology. A good practice guide was published in June 2007 that includes model pathways for the delivery of care. An audiology advisory board has been created to support the implementation and to review progress on the key deliverables. Progress has been made on testing the new assess-and-fit technology which enables a hearing aid to be fitted on the same day as assessment. Work has also begun on the Audiology Transformation Project, which is aimed at ensuring the good practice guidance can be fully implemented and the potential gains in capacity realised.
The strategic health authorities have provided assurance that their activity plans for 2007-08 aim to deliver the six-week maximum wait for all diagnostic tests, including audiology assessments, by March 2008.
With regard to the local position, a new joint £3 million investment from Wakefield District PCT and Kirklees PCT has enabled the Mid Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust to cut the waiting times for digital hearing aid assessment to six weeks. The investment has been used to fund additional staff for extra clinics at the Mid Yorkshire Hospitals Trust and also to offer further services in the community. This means that more patients are being seen, and are having their digital hearing aids fitted as soon as possible, with the majority of patients having aids fitted within 12 weeks.
HIV Infection
Mr. Evans: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what estimate he has made of the number of people in the UK who had HIV (a) at the latest date for which figures are available and (b) in each of the previous five years. [169515]
Dawn Primarolo: The information available is shown in the table.
| Estimated number of adults (aged 15-59) living with HIV (both diagnosed and undiagnosed) in the UK between 2001 and 2006 | |
| Estimate | |
| (1) From 2004 to 2006, estimates exclude individuals aged 15-59 living with HIV who were infected through blood, tissue or blood products (466 in 2006) or through mother-to-infant transmission (233 in 2006) because the proportion undiagnosed cannot be reliably estimated for these prevention groups. Numbers diagnosed include individuals with unknown exposure, allocated to each category according to the distribution of those with known exposure. These estimates (rounded to the nearest 100) with credible ranges were estimated using Multi-parameter Evidence Synthesis, in an extension of the method described in Goubar A et al. www.hpa.org.uk/infections/topics_az/hiv_and_sti/publications/cesaHPAreport.pdf. This methodology combines data from a number of sources such as the “Annual survey of HIV-infected persons accessing care, Unlinked anonymous surveillance, NATSAL 2000, ICH National Study of HIV in Pregnancy and Childhood.” (2) From 2001 to 2003, no range is available for these estimates. Numbers diagnosed were adjusted for under-reporting and failure to access services. Numbers undiagnosed derived for England, Wales and Scotland using data from Natsal 2000 and the Unlinked Anonymous programme in an extension of the method previously described (Petruckevitch et al. “Genitourinary Medicine 1997; 73:348-54”). Numbers undiagnosed for Northern Ireland derived by using exposure specific factors. All cases infected through blood and blood products or tissue were assumed to be diagnosed. (3) Published estimates prior to 2005 only include persons aged 15-59. The methodology for calculating these estimates changed between 2003 and 2004 (although the key data sources were the same). Source: Health Protection Agency | |
HIV Infection: Death
Mr. Evans: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many people in the UK died from AIDS in each of the last five years; and how many in each year were under the age of 25. [169517]
Dawn Primarolo: The information available is shown in the following table.
| Number of deaths among HIV-infected individuals in the United Kingdom 2002-06 by year of death and age at death( 1) | |||||
| Age at death | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 |
| (1) Includes all deaths in HIV-infected as it is presently not possible to assign deaths by primary cause and an individual may have several causes of death which can be difficult to interpret. Notes: 1. Data in the table include reports received by the end of June 2007. Numbers will rise as further reports are received. 2. Deaths are reported by region of death; the individual may have been infected and diagnosed with HIV elsewhere in the UK or abroad. Region of death is not reported in all cases. Source: Health Protection Agency. | |||||
HIV Infection: Young People
Mr. Evans: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many people in the UK under the age of 25 were diagnosed with HIV in each of the last five years. [169518]
Dawn Primarolo: The information requested is shown in the following table.
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