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26 Jun 2008 : Column 526W—continued

Obstetrics and gynaecology
Number (headcount)
	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007
Consultants	1,353	1,413	1,458	1,506	1,506
Registrar Group	973	1,099	1,290	1,328	2,197
Senior House Officer	1,451	1,472	1,522	1,318	424
Foundation Year 2	—	—	—	184	229
House Officer and Foundation Programme Year 1	19	26	45	58	84

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Organs: Donors

Dr. Iddon: To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) what progress he has made on implementing the recommendations of the Organ Donation Taskforce; and if he will make a statement; [213652]

(2) what steps he has taken to develop the network of donation transplant coordinators recommended by the Organ Donation Taskforce. [213653]

Ann Keen: The Department has established an Organ Donation Taskforce Programme Delivery Board, chaired by Professor Sir Bruce Keogh, medical director of the national health service to oversee implementation of the recommendations.

NHS Blood and Transplant, which is represented on the Delivery Board, is leading on work to develop a network of donor transplant co-ordinators and has an agreed strategy in place for the establishment of four teams in 2008-09. The remainder, likely to be a further eight teams, will be established in 2009-10.

Pregnant Women: Young People

Sandra Gidley: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what the conception rate among people aged (a) under 18 and (b) under 16 years was in each of the last five years, broken down by region. [198218]

Meg Hillier: I have been asked to reply.

Available figures are estimates of the number of conceptions that resulted in a live birth, stillbirth or legal termination.

Conception rate for girls aged (a) under 18 and (b) under 16 years by Government Office Region (GOR), England and Wales, 2002 to 2006 (the most recent year for which figures are available) are shown in the following table. Figures for 2006 are provisional.

26 Jun 2008 : Column 528W

(a) Conception rate for girls aged under 18 by Government Office Region (GOR). 2002-2006
	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006
England and Wales	42.9	42.4	41.8	41.4	40.7
England	42.7	42.2	41.6	41.3	40.4
North East	51.1	52.2	50.8	50.0	48.3
North West	45.3	45.1	45.7	46.6	44.0
Yorkshire and the Humber	47.0	46.7	47.3	47.7	46.6
East Midlands	40.4	41.2	40.8	40.2	39.6
West Midlands	47.0	47.4	45.2	45.5	46.4
East of England	34.6	33.3	32.7	32.7	33.2
London	52.8	51.8	49.2	46.0	45.4
South East	34.4	33.1	33.3	34.1	32.9
South West	35.3	34.1	34.3	34.0	32.9
Wales	46.0	45.7	45.1	43.6	44.8
Note: 1. Figures for 2006 are provisional. 2. Rates are per 1,000 females aged 15-17.

(b) Conception rate for girls aged under 16 by Government Office Region (GOR). 2002-2006.
	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006
England and Wales	7.9	7.9	7.5	7.8	7.7
England	7.9	7.9	7.5	7.8	7.7
North East	9.3	10.2	9.9	9.8	9.7
North West	8.0	8.6	7.8	8.5	8.5
Yorkshire and the Humber	9.4	8.8	8.7	9.0	9.6
East Midlands	7.5	7.3	7.3	7.7	7.1
West Midlands	8.6	8.7	8.4	8.8	9.0
East of England	6.3	6.1	5.7	6.0	5.8
London	9.8	9.9	9.0	8.6	8.6
South East	6.4	6.4	5.9	6.4	5.9
South West	6.2	6.4	6.3	6.7	6.5
Wales	8.4	8.1	7.5	7.9	8.6
Note: 1. Figures for 2006 are provisional. 2. Rates are per 1,000 females aged 13-15.

Respiratory System: Durham

Mr. Kevan Jones: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what his most recent assessment is of the incidence of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in County Durham. [211827]

Ann Keen: The information is not available in the requested format. However, the following table contains data for the prevalence of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) in County Durham Primary Care Trust (PCT) area. This information is extracted from the “Quality and Outcomes Framework for 2006-07” data tables showing prevalence in PCT areas. The information can be found on the Information Centre for health and social care website at:

www.ic.nhs.uk/our-services/improving-patient-care/the-quality-and-outcomes-framework-qof-2006/07/qof-2006-07-data-tables

26 Jun 2008 : Column 529W

County Durham PCT
	Number/percentage
Number of practices	73
Sum of list sizes	523,901
Sum of COPD register counts	11,995
COPD unadjusted prevalence (percentage)
PCT	2.3
England	1.4
Notes: Definition of prevalence Quality and Outcomes Framework (QOF) prevalence information for 2006-07 is based on the 8,372 practices that were in the QOF achievement dataset. For 17 of the 19 areas of the clinical domain, the Quality Management and Analysis System (QMAS) captures the number of patients on the clinical register for each practice. (The other two clinical areas, depression and smoking indicators, are based on subsets of other clinical registers.) The number of patients on the clinical registers can be used to calculate measures of disease prevalence, expressing the number of patients on each register as a percentage of the number of patients on practices’ lists. Raw prevalence for each clinical area is defined as a percentage of patients on a practice list: Raw prevalence = (number on clinical register/number on practice list) x 100 QOF prevalence It is important to emphasise that QOF registers do not necessarily equate to prevalence, as defined by epidemiologists. For example, prevalence figures based on QOF registers (eg obesity) may differ from prevalence figures from other sources because of coding or definitional issues. QOF registers are constructed to underpin indicators on quality of care. QMAS only uses ‘Read codes’ that are common to all three versions. It is difficult to interpret year-on-year changes in the size of QOF registers. For example, a gradual rise in QOF prevalence could be due partly to epidemiological factors (such as an ageing population) or due partly to increased case finding.

Spina Bifida: Research

David Simpson: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how much his Department spent on research into spina bifida in each of the last three years. [213565]

Dawn Primarolo: Over the last 10 years, the main part of the Department's total expenditure on health research has been devolved to and managed by national health service organisations. Details of individual NHS supported research projects undertaken during that time, including a number concerned with spina bifida, are available on the archived national research register at

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