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24 Jun 2008 : Column 200W—continued
General Practitioners
Matthew Taylor: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what the average distance from a GP surgery to the nearest external pharmacy is in (a) Cornwall, (b) each constituency in Cornwall, (c) the south-west region and (d) England. [211012]
Mr. Bradshaw: Information on the distances between general practitioner surgeries and external pharmacies is currently not held centrally.
General Practitioners: Finance
Mr. Stephen O'Brien: To ask the Secretary of State for Health pursuant to the answer of 7 February 2008, Official Report, column 1453W, on the Carr-Hill formula review, what revisions have been made to the formula. [212228]
Mr. Bradshaw: Recommendations on the review of the Carr-Hill formula published 9 February 2007 will form part of the ongoing GP contract negotiations with the British Medical Association. Copies of the “Review of the General Medical Services global sum formula” have been placed in the Library.
Gifts and Endowments
Mr. Lansley: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what gifts were received by members of staff in his Department in the course of their duties in 2007-08. [212588]
Mr. Bradshaw: The Department does not hold information centrally about gifts received by members of staff in the course of their duties. To retrieve this information from local sources would involve disproportionate cost.
All staff are aware of their obligation under the code of conduct, copies of which are available in the Library and on the Department's intranet site, which provides guidance about the acceptance of gifts and hospitality.
Health Centres
Dr. Kumar: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what steps he has taken to ensure that local authorities are fully consulted on the introduction of polyclinics. [212165]
Mr. Bradshaw: In commissioning new additional primary medical services (additional general practitioner (GP) practices and GP led health centres) the Department has consistently emphasised to strategic health authorities and primary care trusts the need for strong public and clinical engagement in making decisions on the location and the range of services to be provided. The precise scope and nature of the consultation process should be determined locally, but we would expect this to engage with local authorities and their representatives as well as directly with patients and clinicians.
Health Services
Mr. Jim Cunningham: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what steps the Government plan to take to improve care and support services. [206058]
Mr. Ivan Lewis [holding answer 19 May 2008]: The Government are committed to fundamental reform of the adult social care and support system.
We intend to hold a national consultation, which will lead to the publication of a Green Paper, to identify options for a new system, which will be fair to all and sustainable for the long term.
Advances in public health, healthcare and changes in society mean that we are living longer, and as communities become more diverse, the challenge of supporting that diversity becomes more apparent.
This sort of transformation will require working across the boundaries of social care such as housing, benefits, leisure and transport and health, with partners from independent, voluntary and community organisations to ensure a strategic balance of investment in local services. The importance of this holistic approach is recognised and underpinned by the concordat, ‘Putting People First: A shared vision and commitment to the transformation of Adult Social Care’, which the Department published in December 2007.
‘Putting People First’ sets out the shared aims and values which will guide the transformation of adult social care. It recognises that prevention is one key element of the transformation agenda. The concordat sets out the cross-sector commitment to personalising public services and aims to support all councils to transform their adult social care systems by moving away from intervention at the point of crisis towards early intervention and prevention, focused on promoting independence and improved wellbeing. We are extracting and disseminating early lessons learnt from the Partnerships for Older People Projects programme and related initiatives to support the transformation programme.
It is for councils to determine the allocation of their resources in their area depending on local needs and priorities. This Government have made unprecedented investments in care and support since 1997, including a 45 per cent. real terms increase in local government funding by 2010-11.
We have already made £25 million available to councils to help them support carers in a crisis situation. The review of the Prime Minister's Carers Strategy will be published this month and the helpline will be operational later in the year. We are also establishing a training programme for carers. The first face-to-face training will be in place by August and the distance learning version by the end of the year.
The Government are committed to supporting young disabled people. This is outlined as one of our commitments in the Independent Living Strategy. We will support young disabled people and ensure they experience a seamless transition into adulthood, including those with complex health needs, in all aspects of their life, including between children's and adults' services, as well as housing, transport, employment, education and training.
On 14 December 2007, the Government announced a £45 million fund to ensure that disabled children in England can take better quality short breaks and to give their families time off.
Disabled young people in England are also to receive £8.4 million in extra support. Low income families with disabled young people aged 16 and 17 will be able to access a grant through the Family Fund.
Health Services: Developing Countries
Mr. Clifton-Brown:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) with reference to the Government's response
to the Crisp report on global health partnerships, what progress has been made on guidance on an NHS framework on international development to enable employees in his Department and the NHS to negotiate leave of absence; and what discussions have taken place with NHS employers on the dissemination of such advice to NHS managers; [208210]
(2) with reference to the Crisp report on global health partnerships, what discussions he has had with (a) the Secretary of State for International Development and (b) relevant stakeholders on (i) establishing an NHS framework for international development setting out the principles and rationale for NHS involvement in international partnerships and (ii) identifying a role with oversight of international development activity in each strategic health authority in England. [208211]
Dawn Primarolo: Informal discussions have taken place within Government and with a variety of stakeholders on all these issues. There has been a series of discussions between interested Departments to make progress on the proposals described in our response to Lord Crisp's report. The Department of Health and the Department for International Development are in the process of finalising arrangements for the tendering of the framework and 'one-stop shop'. We will be discussing the Government response to Lord Crisp's report, and how we can take forward a marketing strategy as part of the framework, at a future meeting of the national health service strategic health authority chief executives.
We have also engaged with stakeholders through two meetings in the last month, one hosted by the Royal College of Physicians and a second by the Faculty of Public Health. There will also be discussion with stakeholders at this year's Faculty of Public Health annual meeting in June in Cardiff.
Finally, the Department of Health and the Department for International Development (will also be attending a meeting to mark the 20th year anniversary of the Tropical Health Education Trust. This will provide a further opportunity to take these areas forward with interested stakeholders.
Heart Attacks
Mr. Byers: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many admissions for suspected or actual heart attacks there were in each hospital accident and emergency unit in (a) the latest month for which figures are available and (b) the same month in the preceding year. [213782]
Ann Keen: The Myocardial Infarction Ischaemia National Audit Project (MINAP) collects data on treatment of patients with heart attack. To be included in MINAP, patients should have an initial diagnosis of heart attack upon admission. Figures will therefore not include suspected heart attacks, which were subsequently found not to be a cardiac condition.
Monthly figures are not aggregated at a national level and in many cases will be too small to be meaningful. For comparison purposes, therefore, three months of data for October to December 2006 and the same period in 2007 have been provided. 2008 data are not yet sufficiently complete for comparison.
For England the number of definite admissions for heart attack was:
| October to December | Number |
| Source: MINAP as at 23 June 2008 | |
Figures by hospital within each strategic hospital have been placed in the Library. The majority of patients will have been admitted via accident and emergency departments.
HIV Infection
John Battle: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what his latest estimate is of the number of people with HIV who are unaware that they have the virus. [213328]
Dawn Primarolo: The Health Protection Agency's (HPA's) most recent annual estimate is that there were approximately 21,600 adults (aged 15 to 59) living with HIV in the United Kingdom in 2006 who were unaware of their infection.
Hospitals: Overseas Visitors
John Battle: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how much was spent on employing overseas visitors' officers in hospitals in the last 12 months. [213327]
Dawn Primarolo: The information requested is not available.
Medical Records: Data Protection
Mr. Stephen O'Brien: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what plans he has for the extraction of identifiable information regarding patients from summary and detailed care records and its subsequent storage in an identifiable form on a secondary users database. [212179]
Mr. Bradshaw: At present there are no plans for the extraction of identifiable information from summary care records for storage in an identifiable form in the secondary uses service. It is possible that, in future, information in an anonymised or pseudonimised form, could be stored on a secondary uses service database.
Mr. Stephen O'Brien: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what plans he has to develop further encrypted secure structured data messaging to expedite the transfer of information between the discrete electronic records of clinicians involved in care, with particular reference to those circumstances where clinicians do not share the same detailed care records. [212181]
Mr. Bradshaw: Information technology systems and applications developed under the national programme or information technology (NPfTT), transmit data, securely encrypted, using either the transport level security (TLS) or secure socket layer (SSL) protocols. This allows applications to communicate across a network in a way that prevents eavesdropping, tampering and forgery. They provide authentication and privacy at each end of the transaction over networks using cryptography. In addition, the programme has delivered NHSmail which allows clinicians to transfer electronic records securely encrypted between users within the nhs.net email domain.
NHS Connecting for Health is also developing a new service for the NHS, to be delivered over the N3 broadband network, called secure file transfer, to allow large files to be transferred between care settings over an encrypted channel whether they are related to NPfTT systems or not.
Medical Treatments
Mr. Oaten: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what guidance his Department has issued on rapid sequence induction of anaesthesia and intubation; and what categories of personnel are permitted to perform this procedure. [213611]
Mr. Bradshaw: The Department has not issued any formal guidelines on rapid sequence induction of anaesthesia and intubation. This is a technique carried out only in the most serious emergencies by trained anaesthetists whose professional standards are the subject of guidance from the Royal College of Anaesthetists.
NHS: Belgium
Sandra Gidley: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what consultations the NHS Office in Europe has responded to since its inception. [212079]
Dawn Primarolo: The NHS European Office is part of the NHS Confederation and is funded by the strategic health authorities. It was established in September 2007 to inform national health service organisations of key European Union (EU) developments and help the NHS to respond to EU policy and legislative developments on a strategic level.
Further information about the NHS European Office and its activities is available on the Office’s website at:
NHS: EU Law
Mr. Gordon Prentice: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what processes are followed under EU competition law when the NHS contracts with private sector clinical services providers; and if he will make a statement. [213037]
Mr. Bradshaw: Any procurement of clinical services with a value in excess of £139,893 needs to be undertaken in accordance with European procurement law as introduced into the United Kingdom by the Public Contracts Regulations 2006.
The Department published a “PCT Procurement Guide for Health Services” in May 2008. This is a guide for commissioners of health care services and provides guidance for them on whether and how to procure clinical services and to ensure that procurements are carried out in accordance with European law and national health service principles and practice. Copies have been placed in the Library and it is also available at:
Key requirements of European law relating to the procurement of clinical services include requirements that procurements are transparent, proportionate, non-discriminatory and ensure equality of treatment.
It is of fundamental importance that procurements are advertised to achieve transparency. As set out in the “Principles for Cooperation and Competition” copies of which have been placed in the Library published
with “the Operating Framework. For the NHS in England 2008-09” copies of which are available in the Library, a procurement portal is being established by the Department of Health. Commissioners will be required to advertise all contracts for clinical services on this portal.
NHS: Expenditure
Mr. Laws: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what (a) net NHS expenditure and (b) the annual change in net NHS expenditure was (i) in current prices, (ii) in real terms and (iii) adjusted for NHS-specific inflation in each year since 1997-98. [213503]
Mr. Bradshaw: The details requested on national health service expenditure are shown in the following table.
| Change in NHS net expenditure 1997-98 to 2007-08 | ||||
| Percentage | ||||
| Net NHS expenditure (£ billion) | Percentage c hange | Real terms change( 1) | Change after adjusting for NHS specific inflation | |
| (1) Expenditure pre 1999-2000 is on a cash basis. (2) Outturn. (3) Estimated outturn. Notes: 1. Expenditure figures from 1999-2000 to 2002-03 are on a Stage 1 Resource Budgeting basis. 2. Expenditure figures from 2003-04 to 2007-08 are on a Stage 2 Resource Budgeting basis. 3. Figures are not consistent over the period, therefore it is difficult to make comparisons across time periods. 4. Figures from 2003-04 include a technical adjustment for trust depreciation. 5. Expenditure excludes NHS Annually Managed Expenditure. 6. Gross domestic product deflator at 28 March 2008. 7. Total expenditure is calculated as the sum of revenue and capital, expenditure net of non-trust Depreciation and impairments. This is in line with HM Treasury Guidance. 8. Growth adjusted for NHS specific inflation is only quoted up to 2003-04. This is because the index underlying this calculation was no longer available due to a discontinuity in the data set used to calculate the index. | ||||
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