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7 July 2008 : Column 1288W—continued
Health: Summertime
Mr. Hoyle: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what assessment his Department has made of the potential effect on children's health of a change to British summer time in winter and double British summer time in summer. [214797]
Ann Keen: We have made no such assessment.
Heart Attacks
Mr. Laurence Robertson: To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) what percentage of heart attack victims had access to rehabilitation centres in (a) Gloucestershire and (b) England in the latest period for which figures are available; and if he will make a statement; [215074]
(2) how much funding was provided for rehabilitation centres for heart attack victims in (a) Gloucestershire and (b) England in each of the last five years for which figures are available; what the projected amounts are for the next three years; and if he will make a statement; [215075]
(3) how much of the funding for rehabilitation centres for heart attack victims was ring-fenced in the latest period for which figures are available; and if he will make a statement; [215076]
(4) what percentage of people who had had a heart attack attended rehabilitation in the latest period for which figures are available; and if he will make a statement. [215077]
Ann Keen: Chapter Seven of the “Coronary Heart Disease National Service Framework”, published in March 2000, set out standards for the national health service about the provision of cardiac rehabilitation services. The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) clinical guideline 48, “MI; secondary prevention” was revised and issued in May 2007, copies of both publications have been placed in the Library. This provided updated guidance to the NHS on secondary prevention in primary and secondary care for patients following heart attack and emphasised the importance of rehabilitation for these patients.
Implementation of guidance is a matter for the local NHS, working in partnership with stakeholders and the local community. The Department allocates funding directly to primary care trusts (PCTs) on the basis of the relative needs of their populations, and it is for PCTs to determine how to use the funding to commission and provide services to meet the health care needs of their local populations.
The Department does not collect information centrally about specific funding for, or numbers of eligible patients to whom cardiac rehabilitation services are offered. However, a new National Audit of Cardiac Rehabilitation, funded by the British Heart Foundation has been established which covers the numbers of programmes and uptakes of services. This will provide stronger evidence on the quality and effectiveness of cardiac rehabilitation services and encourage local areas to appraise and improve their service provision. Further details are on the website at:
Hospitals: Attendance
Mr. Burns: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what the cost to the Mid-Essex Hospital Trust has been in each of the last five years of patients missing (a) first appointments and (b) follow-up appointments. [213976]
Mr. Bradshaw: The requested information is not collected centrally.
Hospitals: Closures
Norman Lamb: To ask the Secretary of State for Health which decisions on hospitals scheduled for closure were referred to him in each of the last five years; and how many decisions were not upheld. [213944]
Ann Keen: No decisions on hospitals scheduled for closure have been formally referred to the Secretary of State in the last five years.
Hospitals: Infections
Sandra Gidley: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what steps he has taken to ensure that the Health Act 2006: “Code of Practice for the Prevention and Control of Healthcare Associated Infections” is implemented effectively. [214963]
Ann Keen: The “Health Act 2006: Code of Practice for the Prevention and Control of Healthcare Associated Infections” came into force on 1 October 2006 and compliance is assessed by the Healthcare Commission (HCC).
The HCC has the power to issue an “improvement notice” to a national health service body that is not compliant with the code. In addition to self-declarations on compliance with the code, the HCC make unannounced visits to assess NHS bodies. During 2007-08 the HCC carried out 120 unannounced inspections to ensure compliance with the code, with a focus on acute trusts, and issued three “improvement notices”. All three trusts subsequently demonstrated that they had improved and were compliant with the code. To further strengthen this process, from April 2008, specialist teams from the HCC are carrying out annual infection control inspections
of all acute trusts against the code. This inspection programme is under way and, to date, the HCC has issued one “improvement notice” as part of this programme.
Hospitals: Land
Keith Vaz: To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) what guidance he issues on the involvement of interested parties in decisions on the disposal of land formerly occupied by hospitals; [213828]
(2) what guidance he issues on (a) hospital site transfers and (b) the (i) use and (ii) disposal of land formerly occupied by hospitals. [213837]
Mr. Bradshaw: Guidance for national health service organisations on all land and property transactions, including hospital site transfers and the disposal of surplus land or buildings, is given in the Department’s publication, “Health Building Note 00-08: Estatecode”. Copies of this publication have been placed in the Library.
Under this guidance, where property has been identified as surplus to a particular NHS organisation, such property should be offered to other local trusts to determine whether the asset could be re-used by them for the provision of health care services, Government Departments and the local authority. This policy accords with the Government’s requirement to make better use of surplus public sector land.
Hospitals: Standards
Mr. Jim Cunningham: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what steps the Government has taken to improve the performance of hospitals since 2000. [211051]
Mr. Bradshaw [holding answer 17 June 2008]: Since 2000, the Government have invested significant resources in the national health service so that hospitals are now providing a much higher quality of care, in better facilities, with more staff and better outcomes for patients. As a result, waiting times have reduced significantly, survival rates for cancer and heart disease have greatly improved and the majority of patients tell us they are satisfied with the level of care they receive.
To build on these successes, the Department published “Developing the NHS Performance Regime” in June 2008, which set out the ‘vision’ for developing a performance regime to support NHS organisations to succeed and to identify and address under performance where it occurs.
We continue to work with the NHS across strategic health authorities and primary care trusts to determine local and national priorities to drive better performance in the areas that matter most to patients. National and local priority areas are set through NHS operating frameworks, which the Department reports on quarterly.
Lung Cancer
Sir Peter Soulsby: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what representations his Department has received from the UK Lung Cancer Coalition in the last 12 months; what response has been made to such representations; and if he will make a statement. [216403]
Ann Keen: The Department receives a number of representations from stakeholder groups about cancer policy. The UK Lung Cancer Coalition forwarded a copy of its report, ‘Improving lung cancer survival in the UK’, to the Department on 1 November, the contents of which we read with interest. On 6 December 2008, I acknowledged the excellent work of the UK Lung Cancer Coalition and thanked them for their contribution.
Lung Cancer: Screening
Sir Peter Soulsby: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what progress has been made in implementing a lung cancer screening pilot; and what timetable he has set for the introduction of such a pilot. [216405]
Ann Keen: The Department is leading work on behalf of the National Cancer Research Institute to commission research on the feasibility of a United Kingdom trial of computerised tomography screening for lung cancer. The National Institute for Health Research Technology Assessment programme issued a commissioning brief, taking full account, of the trials already underway in the United States and Europe, with a view to funding feasibility studies as soon as possible. To date, two applications were received and one applicant has been invited to develop a feasibility study. If there is progression to an exploratory trial and then a full randomised controlled trial, these will take a number of years to complete depending on the success of the research at each stage.
Medical Examinations
Daniel Kawczynski: To ask the Secretary of State for Health whether arrangements exist for patients to have annual medical check-ups in the NHS in (a) Shropshire and (b) other parts of England. [210356]
Mr. Bradshaw: The General Medical Services contract requires general practitioner practices to:
invite all newly registered patients for a consultation within six months of registration;
provide, on request, a consultation to all patients aged 75 or over who have not had a consultation within the last 12 months; and
provide, on request, a consultation for patients aged 16-74 who have not had a consultation within the last three years.
There are no arrangements particular to Shropshire.
Neurology: Palliative Care
Mr. Hancock: To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) how he plans to monitor progress towards implementation in 2015 of the National Service Framework for Long-term Neurological Conditions; [215908]
(2) if he will provide guidance to local NHS organisations to ensure implementation of the 11 quality requirements within the National Service Framework for Long-term Neurological Conditions. [215910]
Ann Keen: Progress on implementation of the National Service Framework (NSF) for Long-term Conditions (copies of which have already been placed in the Library) will be measured in a number of ways, including:
research studies commissioned as part of a national research initiative to underpin implementation of the NSF, to provide baseline data needed to measure the subsequent impact of the NSF;
work to develop a national minimum dataset for long-term neurological conditions; and
implementation of clinical indicators developed as part of the Better Metrics Programme.
We have no plans to issue guidance to ensure implementation of the NSF. Since publication of the NSF, the Department has co-ordinated a range of activity to help local authority social care organisations and national health service bodies take forward implementation of the NSF. This includes:
working with key NHS, social care, voluntary and independent sector stakeholders, as well as service users and carers, to identify and address key issues in neurological services and the stakeholders’ role in implementation;
ensuring that other key delivery programmes, most especially the White Paper “Our Health, Our Care, Our Say” (copies of which have already been placed in the Library) and the long-term conditions strategy help deliver key NSF objectives; and
work with the Care Services Improvement Partnership to promote implementation of the NSF through a co-ordinated work programme, including regional workshops, a web-based getting started pack and self-assessment tool for services.
NHS
Andrew Rosindell: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what mechanisms his Department has put in place to enable patients to provide feedback on their experience of local NHS services. [214206]
Ann Keen: The Government are committed to engaging patients and the public in the design and delivery of their local health services by making services more responsive and by giving people more opportunities to comment on and influence the care they receive.
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 National Health Service bodies to involve users of health services.
LINks, together with the new duty on NHS 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 care bringing meaningful engagement to the whole system, from commissioning to front-line care.
The Department is also in the process of reviewing the NHS complaints system to create a single, more simple system covering all NHS and adult social care services. The new approach will mean that the experience of making a complaint is easier and will ensure that lessons are routinely learned from complaints, feeding into service improvement.
The national patient survey programme collects feedback on the quality of service delivery from the point of view of patients and service users. Since its inception, over 20 surveys have been conducted across seven different settings, and well over 1 million patients have taken part. Surveys are conducted by the Healthcare Commission.
NHS: Finance
Mr. Stephen O'Brien: To ask the Secretary of State for Health whether (a) private providers and (b) NHS providers to the NHS are entitled to an uplift in fees in line with (i) inflation and (ii) public sector pay increases. [212208]
Mr. Bradshaw: Neither private providers nor national health service providers are entitled to an automatic uplift in fees in line with inflation or public sector pay increases.
In the case of clinical services, the prices service providers receive through their contracts are set through negotiation and agreement with the service commissioner, taking into account the actual costs of providing those services. This applies to both NHS bodies and private providers. Any clinical services provided under the rules of the payment by results system will be subject to the standard national tariff uplift.
In contracts for cleaning and similar services, there is normally no automatic price increase, although this is a matter for negotiation. Private sector contractors have the opportunity to include an allowance for wage increases in their tender, which will only be successful if it shows the best value for money for the NHS.
The exception is private finance initiative (PFI) contracts, where there is an annual adjustment to the service payment to allow for inflation, in accordance with HM Treasury policy. For cleaning and similar services in PFI, the adjustment reflects changes in employment costs rather than inflation.
NHS: Sick Pay
Jenny Willott: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how much sick pay was paid to NHS employees in each of the last five years; what proportion of the NHS's staffing expenditure this figure represented in each such year; and if he will make a statement. [215979]
Ann Keen: The amount of sick pay paid to national health service employees is not collected centrally.
NHS: Staff
Mr. Stephen O'Brien: To ask the Secretary of State for Health pursuant to the research paper What Matters to Staff in the NHS, what percentage of respondents ticked each box for each question in the survey on which the report was based. [215013]
Ann Keen: The data on the percentage of respondents ticked which box in the survey upon which the “What Matters to staffing the NHS” report was based has been placed in the Library.
Mr. Stephen O'Brien: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how much the survey What Matters to Staff in the NHS cost. [215014]
Ann Keen: The “What Matters to Staff in the NHS” survey cost £65,800.
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