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22 May 2008 : Column 486W—continued

Dental Services: Fees and Charges

Sir Peter Soulsby: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what the average payment was to orthodontists supplying dental braces to those under the age of 18 years by the NHS in the latest period for which figures are available; and what comparison he has made with the average payment for such private work. [206606]

Ann Keen: This information is not available. Since April 2006, primary care dentists including orthodontists are paid on the basis of the overall level of patient care they provide each year rather then on the basis of set fees for individual treatments. Primary care trusts set contract values and service level requirements locally. The levels of patient care delivered are then measured by weighting the courses of treatment provided by each dentist according to their relative complexity and whether they included the provision of any appliances including dental braces. The Department does not collect data on charges levied by dentists for private dental treatments.

Emergency Services

Mike Penning: To ask the Secretary of State for Health on what dates officials in his Department held discussions with officials in the Welsh Assembly Government on the cross-border provision of urgent care services in the last 12 months; and what the content of these discussions was. [189227]

Mr. Bradshaw: Primary care trusts are responsible for ensuring the provision of high quality urgent care services. The Department has not held any discussions with Welsh Assembly officials on the cross-border provision of urgent care services in the last 12 months.

Health Services

Mr. Jim Cunningham: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what steps the Government have taken to make NHS services more personalised. [206716]

Mr. Bradshaw: The following table summarises the recent developments to make national health service services more personalised. The Government are taking forward Lord Darzi's vision for personalised care as set out in his interim report, “Our NHS, our future”, copies of the interim report are available in the Library. Lord Darzi's final report will be published in the summer.

Policy/initiative	What's been done
Choice and personalisation	With effect from 1 April 2008:
	Most patients who are referred for elective care will be able to choose to be treated by any NHS funded provider—in essence, any provider that holds a standard NHS contract. This includes NHS foundation trusts, NHS acutes and many independent sector providers and their hospitals. This is free choice;
	We also expect primary care trusts (PCTs) to improve care for people with long-term conditions (LTCs) and to ensure more choices for these patients. We expect PCTs to roll out choice to all people in their area with an LTC, with local flexibility on the pace and priorities, and we have supported this by publishing a model of care for long-term conditions, embedded in effective care planning, that provides good practice examples aimed at reducing inequalities; and
	PCTs are taking forward commitments to introduce choice of services for maternity.
Care planning	We are planning to issue a framework for commissioners in June 2008, which will describe care planning as a process, centred around the person, which supports and promotes personalisation. During 2008, we will bring forward a patients' prospectus that sets out how we will extend to all 15 million patients with a chronic or long-term condition access to a choice of "active patient” or “care at home” options—clinically appropriate to them and supported by the NHS.
Information Prescriptions (IPs)	IPs are being introduced for everyone with a LTC which will guide them to relevant and reliable sources of information to allow them to feel more in control and better able to manage their condition.
NHS Choices	NHS Choices is the NHS's online service for the public—the digital wing of the NHS. Launched in 2007, it is a response to the 21(st) century challenges of delivering high-quality personalised services for all. It is regularly updated to provide more information to patients.
Choice and mental health	We are committed to giving people with mental health problems choice and a more personalised service, including making more information available about mental illness to help people manage their own care. In the last year, work has been on-going, both locally and nationally, to increase the level of choice offered to people with mental health problems.

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Mr. Jim Cunningham: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what steps the Government intend to take to encourage primary care trusts to be more responsive to their local communities. [206751]

Ann Keen: The World Class Commissioning Programme aims to dramatically transform the way health and care services are commissioned in this country. As commissioners, primary care trusts (PCTs) act on behalf of the public and patients. They are responsible for investing funds on behalf of their communities, and building local trust and legitimacy through the process of engagement with their local population. In order to make world class commissioning decisions that reflect the needs, priorities and aspirations of the local population, commissioners will need to engage with the public, and actively seek the views of patients, carers and the wider community. Decisions should be made with a strong mandate from the local population and other partners.

The Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007 contained important measures designed to strengthen the patient and public involvement system in England, including the introduction of local involvement networks (LINks) and the updated duty on NHS bodies to involve users of health services.

The Act established duties on health and social care services-providers—including PCTs—to respond to LINks when they report on the needs and experiences of local people in respect of their health and social care services.

LINks, together with the new duty on national health service bodies to involve, and to report on consultations, will play a vital role in encouraging and enabling a greater range of people to influence the commissioning and provision of health and social care bringing real accountability to the whole system, from commissioning to front-line care.

All of these changes are aimed at promoting open and transparent communication between communities and the health service, and will develop trust and confidence, increasing accountability to local people.

Hearing Impaired: Medical Equipment

Mr. Davey: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what the average waiting times for the fitting of digital hearing aids by NHS hospital trusts are; and if he will make a statement. [207348]

Mr. Ivan Lewis: The data are not currently collected. The Department will start monthly data collections on waits for audiology treatment, including the fitting of hearing aids, in May 2008 to cover treatment carried out in April 2008. We will publish these data as soon as they are of sufficiently robust quality.

Hospitals: Chelmsford

Mr. Burns: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how much revenue was generated by charges imposed upon (a) staff, (b) patients and (c) others for the use of car parks at (i) Broomfield and (ii) St John's hospitals in Chelmsford in each of the last five years. [206923]

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Mr. Bradshaw: Hospital car parking charges are decided locally by individual trusts to help cover the cost of running and maintaining a car park. All trusts should have exemption and concessionary schemes in place to ensure that patients and carers who visit hospital regularly are not disadvantaged. They should also have sustainable public transport plans in place for staff and visitors.

The East of England Strategic Health Authority advises that the Mid Essex Hospital Services NHS Trust provide 15 minutes free parking to allow people to be dropped off and picked up at the hospital. In addition, it provides free parking to anyone holding a local authority blue disabled badge and offers reduced priced tickets to frequent users and a weekly ticket for longer-term users.

Data on the gross income that national health service trusts receive from car parking charges paid by staff and visitors have been collected since 2000. These data are provided by the NHS on a voluntary basis and have not been amended following their collection, nor have they been actively checked by the Department and therefore cannot be confirmed to be accurate or complete.

Information in respect of Broomfield and St John's hospitals in Chelmsford is shown in the following table.

	Total gross income from staff parking	Total gross income from patient and visitor parking
Broomfield Hospital
2002-03	85,386	423,783
2003-04	31,851	295,075
2004-05	51,366	503,418
2005-06	62,383	598,525
2006-07	89,000	689,740
St. John ’ s Hospital
2002-03	28,462	141,261
2003-04	13,650	126,461
2004-05	12,916	120,645
2005-06	12,569	128,913
2006-07	2,247	162,214

Hospitals: Children

David Lepper: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what the 10 most common causes of childhood emergency (a) admissions to and (b) attendances at hospital were in each of the last five years. [206000]

Ann Keen: The information requested is shown in the following table. Information is not currently available centrally on reason for attendances at accident and emergency departments.

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Number of emergency admissions for the 10 most common primary diagnoses of children aged under 18 in each of the last five years, 2006-07 to 2002-03—National health service hospitals England and activity performed in the independent sector in England commissioned by English NHS
	Primary diagnosis	Total episodes
	2006-07
J06	Acute upper respiratory infections of multiple and unspecified sites	40,928
B34	Viral infection of unspecified site	34,550
R10	Abdominal and pelvic pain	34,120
J45	Asthma	26,781
R06	Abnormalities of breathing	23,574
A08	Viral and other specified intestinal infections	22,349
S52	Fracture of forearm	21,241
J21	Acute bronchiolitis	20,747
R56	Convulsions not elsewhere classified	18,816
K52	Other noninfective gastroenteritis and colitis	18,162
	2005-06
J06	Acute upper respiratory infections of multiple and unspecified sites	42,003
R10	Abdominal and pelvic pain	34,941
B34	Viral infection of unspecified site	31,770
J21	Acute bronchiolitis	23,388
J45	Asthma	22,839
A08	Viral and other specified intestinal infections	22,512
S52	Fracture of forearm	21,125
R06	Abnormalities of breathing	20,421
R56	Convulsions not elsewhere classified	19,446
K52	Other noninfective gastroenteritis and colitis	18,128
	2004-05
J06	Acute upper respiratory infections of multiple and unspecified sites	38,989
R10	Abdominal and pelvic pain	33,232
B34	Viral infection of unspecified site	29,288
J45	Asthma	25,817
A08	Viral and other specified intestinal infections	23,155
S52	Fracture of forearm	21,440
R06	Abnormalities of breathing	20,602
J21	Acute bronchiolitis	19,992
K52	Other noninfective gastroenteritis and colitis	19,237
R56	Convulsions not elsewhere classified	18,609
	2003-04
J06	Acute upper respiratory infections of multiple and unspecified sites	41,283
B34	Viral infection of unspecified site	32,353
R10	Abdominal and pelvic pain	30,968
S52	Fracture of forearm	22,936
J45	Asthma	22,690
J21	Acute bronchiolitis	20,362
A08	Viral and other specified intestinal infections	19,443
R56	Convulsions not elsewhere classified	19,199
R06	Abnormalities of breathing	17,668
K52	Other noninfective gastroenteritis and colitis	16,799
	2002-03
J06	Acute upper respiratory infections of multiple and unspecified sites	36,209
B34	Viral infection of unspecified site	31,260
R10	Abdominal and pelvic pain	28,565
S52	Fracture of forearm	22,861
A08	Viral and other specified intestinal infections	21,809
J45	Asthma	21,795
K52	Other noninfective gastroenteritis and colitis	19,280
J21	Acute bronchiolitis	19,073
R56	Convulsions not elsewhere classified	17,601
R06	Abnormalities of breathing	16,347
Notes: 1. Finished admission episodes (FAEs): An FAE is the first period of in-patient care under one consultant within one health care provider. Admissions do not represent the number of in-patients, as a person may have more than one admission within the year. 2. Data quality: Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) are compiled from data sent by over 300 NHS trusts and primary care trusts (PCTs) in England. The Information Centre for health and social care liaises closely with these organisations to encourage submission of complete and valid data and seeks to minimise inaccuracies and the effect of missing and invalid data via HES processes. While this brings about improvement over time, some shortcomings remain. 3. Assessing growth through time: HES figures are available from 1989-90 onwards. During the years that these records have been collected by the NHS, there have been ongoing improvements in quality and coverage. These improvements in information submitted by the NHS have been particularly marked in the earlier years and need to be borne in mind when analysing time series. Changes in NHS practice also need to be borne in mind when analysing time series. For example a number of procedures may now be undertaken in outpatient settings and may no longer be accounted in the HES data. This may account for any reductions in activity over time. 4. Diagnosis (Primary Diagnosis): The primary diagnosis is the first of up to 14 (seven prior to 2002-03) diagnosis fields in the HES dataset and provides the main reason why the patient was in hospital. 5. Ungrossed Data: Figures have not been adjusted for shortfalls in data (i.e. the data are ungrossed). Source: HES, The Information Centre for Health and Social Care

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