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26 Mar 2008 : Column 201W—continued
COMARE recommended that regulation of these commercial CT services should be reviewed. It also recommends that clients should be provided with comprehensive information regarding dose and risk of the CT scan, as well as rates of false negative and false positive findings. Among its detailed recommendations (nine in all) COMARE noted there is a regulatory requirement that all medical exposures using ionising radiation should be optimised, and that it is not possible
to optimise exposure parameters for CT scans of the whole of the body. It has strongly recommended that services offering whole body CT scanning of asymptomatic individuals should discontinue. In addition, CT should not be used in assessment of spinal conditions, body fat and osteoporosis in asymptomatic individuals.
The Department will be consulting widely on implementation of these recommendations.
Hospitals: Infectious Diseases
James Brokenshire: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many people (a) successfully and (b) unsuccessfully claimed compensation in relation to a MRSA or clostridium difficile infection contracted in an NHS hospital by (i) themselves and (ii) a family member in each of the last five years. [193817]
Ann Keen: The information requested is shown in the table. The NHS Litigation Authority (NHSLA) provided the information. The year given is the year in which the NHSLA was notified of the claim.
| All closed claims where the injury is meticillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus or Clostridium difficile as at 31 December 2007 | ||||
| NHSLA notification year | Status | Claimant is patient | Claimant is family member | Total |
Hospitals: Telephones
Anne Milton: To ask the Secretary of State for Health pursuant to the answer of 7 February 2008, Official Report, column 1462W, on hospital telephones, what estimate his Department has made of the average cost of an incoming telephone call to a child's bedside telephone; and what assessment he has made of the effect of telephone charges for incoming calls on parents' ability to contact their children while they are in hospital. [190518]
Mr. Bradshaw: The Department recognises how stressful a child's hospital stay can be, which is why the average length of stay has been reduced to two days. The most important issue is to ensure that a child's stay in hospital is kept to a minimum, consistent with achieving a good recovery.
The relevant national service framework for children states that children should have the comfort and reassurance provided by personal contact with close family members. Wherever practicable, hospitals make suitable provisions for parents to stay overnight with their children.
Where this is not possible or practicable for parents to stay, mobile telephones may be used in certain areas of the hospital and bedside telephone systems allow children to maintain contact with friends and relatives.
The cost of a telephone call to the bedside system in a children's ward varies, although, in most cases, it is 39 pence per minute off peak and 49 pence per minute peak rate.
Other options exist for people not wishing to use the bedside telephone systems. These include the traditional payphones and hospital switchboard facilities and mobile telephones which ensure parents can be kept up to date on their child's progress.
No assessment has been made of any effect of telephone charges for parents calling a child while in hospital.
Hospitals: Waiting Lists
Mr. Bone: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what the median number of days, wait was for patients to receive hospital treatment following GP referral in England in each month since January 1997 based on hospital episodes statistics. [196395]
Mr. Bradshaw [holding answer 25 March 2008]: By December 2008, patients who want it, and for whom it is clinically appropriate, can expect to start their treatment within a maximum of 18 weeks from referral.
Referral to treatment (RTT) waits were not monitored centrally prior to January 2007. Measurement of referral to treatment waiting times for admitted patients commenced in January 2007 and for non-admitted patients from April 2007. The following table shows median referral to treatment waits for both admitted and non-admitted patients since January 2007 and April 2007 respectively.
| Average (median) RTT times (commissioner based) for completed pathways | ||
| Days | ||
| Admitted patients | Non-admitted patients | |
| Source: Monthly RTT data collection | ||
Mr. Bone: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many patients were waiting more than six months for an NHS in-patient operation in each month since October 2005. [196396]
Mr. Bradshaw [holding answer 25 March 2008]: The figures are shown in the following table.
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