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2 July 2008 : Column 936W—continued
Departmental Conferences
Mr. Hoban: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what the (a) scheduled date and (b) title was of each conference proposed to be hosted by his Department and its agencies which was cancelled before taking place in each of the last 10 years; and what costs were incurred in respect of each. [215177]
Mr. Bradshaw: This information is not available centrally and could be provided only at disproportionate cost.
Departmental Home Working
Bob Spink: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many staff in his Department are authorised to work from home. [212524]
Mr. Bradshaw: The Department’s human resources information system currently records four staff as members of its official home working scheme. The Department also allows staff to work at home on an occasional basis at management discretion. No data are kept on these ad hoc arrangements that enable staff to enjoy a more flexible, family friendly working arrangement.
Our policy is in line with approaches commonly adopted across the civil service and reflects good practice followed by organisations more widely.
Departmental Pay
Bob Spink: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what estimate he has made of the average pay per hour worked by (a) permanent and (b) temporary staff in his Department in the last period for which figures are available, broken down by pay band. [212498]
Mr. Bradshaw: The average pay per hour of permanent and temporary civil servants in the Department, broken down by pay band is as follows:
| Pay band | Average pay per hour (£) |
| Note: Permanent and temporary staff are not identified separately, but temporary staff account for less than 2 per cent. of the total number of staff. Figures are as at December 2007. They cover basic salaries and have been calculated on the assumption of 220.5 working days in a year and average full-time contracted hours of 36.33 a week. | |
Departmental Pilot Schemes
Mr. Hoban: To ask the Secretary of State for Health which pilot projects initiated by his Department in the last two years have not proceeded to further roll-out. [211839]
Mr. Bradshaw: This information could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.
Departmental Press
Mr. Hoban: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how much was spent by his Department on subscriptions for magazines, newspapers and other publications in each of the last 24 months. [215209]
Mr. Bradshaw: The Department's Library Service is responsible for central purchasing of newspapers, magazines and other publications for Library use and for retention by individual units. The following table details the monthly spend, by the Library, on print publications in the last 24 months covering the period June 2006 to May 2008.
| Spend on magazines, newspapers and other publications (£) | |
| (1 )Figures include payments for journal subscriptions for the financial year. | |
Departmental Sick Leave
Norman Lamb: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many (a) NHS staff and (b) Department of Health staff were given long-term sick leave for mental health reasons in each of the last three years; and if he will make a statement. [212230]
Mr. Bradshaw: The Department does not currently collect sickness absence information in the detail requested for national health service staff.
The Department uses a category of ‘mental health, including depression, anxiety and potential stress-related problems’ to record absence for mental health reasons. In the calendar year 2007, 20 staff were on sick leave for more than 40 working days for this reason. Figures for previous years are not available.
Departmental Sick Pay
Mr. Hoban: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how much sick pay to staff in his Department cost in the last five years for which figures are available. [212001]
Mr. Bradshaw: In the financial year 2007-08, the average number of working days lost (AWDL) per member of the Department’s staff due to sickness absence was 5.3. Based on average salary costs, this equates to a cost of £2,386,000 for the year. For 2006-07, AWDL was 6.5 and for the calendar year 2005, AWDL was 7.0 (Cabinet Office reporting periods changed from calendar years to financial years between 2005 and 2006). Assuming the same average salaries and staff numbers for these years gives costs of £2,926,000 for 2006-07 and £3,151,000 for 2005.
Figures are not available before 2005.
Departmental Trade Unions
Bob Spink: To ask the Secretary of State for Health which trade unions represent members of staff in (a) his Department and (b) its agencies. [212482]
Mr. Bradshaw: The Department and its agencies recognise the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS), Prospect and FDA for the purposes of representation on matters such as pay and other human resources issues. The vast majority of staff who are members of trade unions belong to one of these three, although a small number are members of other unions that the Department does not formally recognise.
Health Centres
Keith Vaz: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what the average annual cost of running a GP surgery is. [213097]
Mr. Bradshaw: The average annual cost of running a general practitioner practice in England in 2007-08 is currently £889,488.
HIV Infection
Sandra Gidley: To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) what steps the Government are taking to encourage primary care trusts to devote more resources to HIV prevention; [214336]
(2) if he will establish a short-term fund to encourage GP surgeries and other healthcare settings to pilot routine HIV testing to reduce the number of undiagnosed cases of HIV; [214338]
(3) if he will take steps to persuade other health authorities to adopt targets similar to those of the London Strategic Health Authority on the reduction of the incidence of late diagnosis of HIV. [214370]
Dawn Primarolo:
It is for primary care trusts to decide on their local priorities for funding. The Department published The National Strategy for Sexual Health and HIV (copies of which are available in the Library) in 2001, which highlights HIV prevention as a priority area. The Department has supported local action on
HIV prevention through a range of publications focusing on the groups at highest risk including gay men and people from African communities.
As set out in the Health Inequalities: Progress and Next Steps (copies of which are available in the Library), the Department will be funding new work this year to pilot action to reduce undiagnosed HIV by improving the detection and diagnosis of HIV in a variety of settings. The Department has previously funded the Terrence Higgins Trust to pilot the acceptability and effectiveness of community-based HIV and syphilis and this new work will build on the evaluation findings from this earlier work.
We welcome the work done by NHS London in setting an HIV prevention performance indicator to reduce the incidence of late HIV diagnosis. It is for individual strategic health authorities to decide if they wish to introduce a local indicator on HIV, taking into account local and regional variations in prevalence. The Independent Advisory Group for Sexual Health's review of the Sexual Health and HIV Strategy, will also suggest possible indicators for use at national and local level.
Hospitals
Mr. Dunne: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many hospitals have (a) opened and (b) closed in each constituency in each year since 1997-98. [213633]
Mr. Bradshaw: Information on the number of new hospital schemes commissioned under this Government and which have opened in each constituency in each year since 1997-98 has been placed in the Library.
Information on any hospital closures outside of these schemes is not held centrally. National health service organisations will decide locally what constitutes the best configuration of healthcare services and facilities for their populations, working in conjunction with clinicians, patients and other stakeholders.
Hospitals: Inspections
Andrew Rosindell: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many hospitals in London met each of the Core Standards for Better Health in the most recent period for which figures are available. [214188]
Mr. Bradshaw: Each national health service trust and NHS foundation trust is required to publish a self-declaration of compliance against the Core Standards for Better Health. These declarations are on each trust’s website and the Healthcare Commission published the national position on 16 June 2008.
Hospitals: Waiting Lists
Mr. Hoyle: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what the average waiting time for hospital treatment was in (a) Chorley, (b) Lancashire and (c) England in each year since 1997. [214178]
Mr. Bradshaw: The information is shown in the following table.
| Average in-patient waiting time for organisations covering Chorley, Lancashire and England 1997 to present | ||||
| Median wait (weeks) | ||||
| Period | Organisations covering Chorley | Organisations covering Lancashire | England | |
| Notes: 1. Organisations covering Chorley: South Lancashire Health Authority (HA), 1997-2002; Chorley and South Ribble PCT, 2003-06; Central Lancashire primary care trust (PCT), 2007-08 2. Organisations covering Lancashire: South Lancashire HA, East Lancashire HA, North West Lancashire HA, Morecombe Bay HA; 1997-2002 Blackburn With Darwen PCT, Blackpool PCT, Morecombe Bay PCT, Chorley and South Ribble PCT, West Lancashire PCT, Hyndburn and Ribble Valley PCT, Burnley, Pendle and Rossendale PCT, Preston PCT, Fylde PCT, Wyre PCT; 2003-06 Blackburn With Darwen PCT, Blackpool PCT, Central Lancashire PCT, East Lancashire PCT, North Lancashire PCT; 2007-08 3. The figures show the median waiting times for patients still waiting at the end of the period. 4. In-patient waiting times are measured from decision to admit by the consultant to admission to hospital. 5. Median waiting times are calculated from aggregate data, rather than patient level data, and therefore are only estimates of the position on average waits. Source: QF01 and Monthly Monitoring (Commissioner based) | ||||
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