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15 Sep 2008 : Column 2047W—continued
Higher Education: Admissions
Stephen Williams: To ask the Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills what estimate he has made of the proportion of 16 year olds who achieved five GCSEs at grades A* to C including English and mathematics who did not apply to university within two years of receiving their results in the most recent period for which figures are available. [216895]
Bill Rammell: Comprehensive information on university applications including GCSE attainment is not available.
Information is available, from matched administrative datasets, about those who have entered HE courses. Around 41 per cent. of those in maintained schools achieving five or more GCSEs at grades A* to C including English and mathematics at age 15 to 16 in 2001/02 did not enter a higher level course in a UK Higher Education Institution at age 18 in 2004/05 nor at age 19 in 2005/06. Around 2 per cent. entered higher level courses at English Further Education Colleges in the same years.
Lip Reading: Education
Bob Spink: To ask the Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills what proportion of lip-reading classes were provided free to learners in each year since 2004-05; and if he will make a statement. [223242]
Mr. Lammy: In 2004-05, 473 adult learners undertook a further education (FE) lip-reading course funded by the Learning and Skills Council (LSC). 81 per cent. of these learners paid no fee due either to national policy or by having their fees waived at the discretion of the provider.
Information on the number of lip-reading learners receiving fee remission for 2005-06 and 2006-07 is not available centrally. I have therefore asked Mark Haysom, Chief Executive of the Learning and Skills Council to write with this information. A copy of his reply will be placed in the House Library.
Full fee remission is provided to learners on LSC funded FE courses where they are in receipt of income based benefits or are studying on a Skills for Life, full level 2 or full level 3 course (if they are aged 19-25). In addition to this some FE colleges and providers can use their discretion to waive fees. They may choose to do so where a learner is undertaking a lip-reading course and has declared themselves as having a learning difficulty and/or disabilities for example where a learner is hearing impaired.
Health
Alcoholic Drinks: Health Education
Mr. Lansley: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what targeted information and advice his Department has given to people who drink at harmful levels, as referred to in paragraph 2.36 of his Department's Cancer Reform Strategy. [221150]
Dawn Primarolo:
“Safe.Sensible.Social.—The next steps in the National Alcohol Strategy” committed the Government to developing a range of new kinds of
information and advice targeting people whose drinking places them at harmful levels, and their families/friends, from August 2008 onwards.
Since September 2006 a social marketing programme has been under way to meet this commitment and research has been undertaken to understand what motivates those drinking at increasing or higher risk levels and how their behaviour can be influenced. Key outputs of this programme formed part of the Units campaign launch in May 2008, including:
Reframing public-facing language on levels of drinking from “sensible”, “hazardous” and “harmful” to the risk-based “lower”, “increasing” and “higher”;
Promoting delivery of “Identification and Brief Advice” (IBA) through front-line services including the provision of materials and support to general practitioners (GPs), such as a surgery wall-chart, fact sheets and fact cards to hand out to patients. From September 2008 an E-leaming module on delivering IBA will be available for GPs and other primary care staff;
Launching DrinkCheck at nhs.uk/units where users are able to calculate what level of risk their drinking places them in and if necessary signpost them to information either on-line, by post or through the telephone helpline;
Publishing a printed self-help manual “Your drinking and you”, available by post or download, which has been designed by alcohol health specialists to help people reduce their drinking. Approximately 2,000 copies have been ordered to date via DrinkCheck and the telephone helpline, even though the Units campaign did not include any call to action. We are expecting this to be boosted further by the national launch of print advertising focusing on health consequences between mid-July-August; and
Expanding the Drinkline telephone helpline to provide advice to drinkers and signpost them to the self-help material.
We are now ready to move on to the next, direct marketing phase, which will help us to begin “acquiring” drinkers to receive the “Your drinking and you” booklet and agree to participate in follow up research and testing.
This next “acquisition phase” is designed to drive responses to the website, helpline or to order the self-help booklet directly and is similar in structure to the smoking campaign which has a direct response campaign running alongside a more general awareness campaign.
The first phase of the campaign will be tested in the North West of England, which has the greatest concentration of our target group of higher risk drinkers, and will be rolled out from the beginning of September.
Drugs: Finance
Mr. Grieve: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what the Pooled Drug Treatment budget for England was in (a) 2003-04, (b) 2004-05, (c) 2005-06, (d) 2006-07 and (e) 2007-08. [223600]
Mr. Bradshaw: I refer to the hon. and learned Member to the written answer I gave the hon. Member for Hornchurch (James Brokenshire) on 18 March 2008, Official Report, columns 997-98W.
Eculizumab
Andrew Stunell: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what plans he has to refer the use of Eculizumab to the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence for assessment. [223638]
Dawn Primarolo: There are no plans for Ministers to refer the use of Eculizumab to treat the condition Paroxysmal Nocturnal Haemoglobinuria to the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence for appraisal.
Health Centres
Mr. Lansley: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many additional (a) GPs and (b) other staff, broken down by type of staff, he estimates will be required to staff the new GP-led health centres. [220998]
Mr. Bradshaw: The exact staffing levels at each general practitioner-led health centre will vary depending on the range and extent of additional services each centre provides, to reflect local health needs.
Health Professions: Pay
Andrew Stunell: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what plans he has to require the strategic health authorities to reinstate the practice of awarding return to practice bursaries for midwifery, radiography and healthcare science. [223637]
Mr. Bradshaw: Strategic health authorities are responsible for allocating resources from education and training funding to support local initiatives such as return to practice programmes for professional staff. The Department is providing support and funding to strategic health authorities for a programme of work, to deliver expansion in midwifery capacity, as I announced in February. This includes supporting midwives through return to practice, where this is part of the local recruitment programme.
Health Services: Finance
Andrew Stunell: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what advice he has received on the appropriateness of the incremental cost effectiveness ratio; and if he will make a statement. [223639]
Dawn Primarolo: The methodology used by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) to calculate a technology's incremental cost effectiveness ratio is determined by NICE itself. NICE publishes details of its appraisal methodology in its “Guide to Methods of Technology Appraisal”. NICE last updated this document in June 2008 following a public consultation, and the current version is available on NICE'S website at:
www.nice.org.uk/media/B52/A7/TAMethodsGuideUpdated June2008.pdf
Hospitals: Parking
Mr. Bone: To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will bring forward proposals to abolish car parking charges at hospitals in England. [223627]
Mr. Bradshaw:
There are no plans to abolish car parking charges at hospitals in England. These charges are decided locally by individual trusts to help cover the cost of running and maintaining a car park. If no charges were made for car parking then these funds
would have to be found from elsewhere within that trust's budget, thereby reducing the amount of funds available for patient care.
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.
Hypothermia: Elderly
Mr. Sanders: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what steps he plans to take to assist elderly people to avoid hypothermia during winter months. [223585]
Mr. Bradshaw: The Department runs an annual Keep Warm Keep Well (KWKW) campaign to reduce the harm to health associated by cold weather, including preventing hypothermia in elderly people. This year, the KWKW campaign has piloted and developed materials that specifically target high-risk groups, and includes a booklet designed for elderly people. This includes information on how to ensure elderly people are claiming all the benefits they are entitled to, how to access grants to help keep their homes warmer and advice about how to keep warm and reduce the risk to health during a cold period. This booklet will be distributed to a wide range of venues that elderly people frequent, including general practitioner surgeries and pharmacies. Last year over two million copies were distributed.
Additionally, the Department is working closely with Warmfront to ensure better targeting of older people with information to access grants to improve insulation and heating and to maximise benefits that they are entitled to.
Independent Reconfiguration Panel
Mr. Greg Knight: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how much funding his Department has given to the Independent Reconfiguration Panel in each of the last five years. [223597]
Mr. Bradshaw: Independent Reconfiguration Panel expenditure is not separately identified within departmental costs.
Mr. Greg Knight: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what estimate he has made of the percentage of his decisions on healthcare reconfiguration that have (a) reflected and (b) rejected the view of the Independent Reconfiguration Panel; and if he will make a statement. [223598]
Mr. Bradshaw: There have been no occasions where the Secretary of State has chosen to reject the Independent Reconfiguration Panel's recommendations.
Members: Correspondence
Sir John Stanley: To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will issue a direction to the transport co-ordinator of the South West Thames Retrieval Service to reply to the letters sent to her by the right hon. Member for Tonbridge and Malling on (a) 19 May and (b) 1 August 2008 on the death of a child in his constituency. [223473]
Mr. Bradshaw: We are sorry to learn of the death of the child of the right hon. Member's constituents, and we offer our condolences to the family. The South Thames Retrieval Service is provided by Guy’s and St. Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, and this is therefore a matter for the Foundation Trust. We have written to Patricia Moberly, chair of Guy’s and St. Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, informing her of the right hon. Member's inquiry. She will reply shortly, and a copy of the letter will be placed in the Library.
NHS: Dental Services
Mr. Sanders: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many dentists per head of population there were in (a) Torbay and (b) England at the latest date for which figures are available. [223583]
Mr. Bradshaw: The number of dentists with national health service activity in England, per 100,000 population, during the year ending 31 March 2008 is available in Table G1 of Annex 3 of the NHS Dental Statistics for England: 2007-08 report. Information is available by primary care trust and strategic health authority. This is the latest information available.
This report, published on 21 August 2008 by the NHS Information Centre for health and social care, has already been placed in the Library and is also on the NHS Information Centre website at:
NHS: Personnel
Mr. Spellar: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what estimate he has made of the extent to which NHS trusts employ staff on short term contracts who have left other NHS employers with substantial severance packages; and if he will make a statement. [223499]
Mr. Bradshaw: Information relating to individual contracts of employment is not collected centrally.
The Department would expect NHS employers to adhere to relevant employment law and departmental guidance and to follow good human resources practice when dealing with contracts of employment.
Pharmacy: Rural Areas
Mr. Clifton-Brown: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what criteria are being used in reviewing the operation of dispensaries in doctors' surgeries in rural areas; and what safeguards are being put in place for the access of the elderly and vulnerable to such dispensing services. [223479]
Dawn Primarolo: The factors for consideration are set out in the consultation paper, “Pharmacy in England: Building on strengths—delivering the future—proposals for legislative change”, published on 27 August 2008. The consultation has been placed in the Library and is available on the Department's website at:
As part of this consultation, we have put forward a range of options, including doing nothing in respect of general practitioner dispensing arrangements, on which
we are seeking views. The impact assessments, which have been published as part of the consultation, consider the likely effects of each of the options available.
Tobacco
David Taylor: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what consideration is being given to the role of track and trace systems for tobacco products in the current consultation on the future of tobacco controls; and if he will make a statement. [223590]
Mr. Bradshaw: The Department's consultation on the future of tobacco control closed for responses on 8 September 2008. Responses received are now under consideration.
Transport
Bus Services: Finance
Mr. Sanders: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what sources of public funding bus operators can access to support their provision of services; and against what criteria applications for payments from such sources are determined. [223584]
Ms Rosie Winterton: All operators of local bus services are eligible to receive Bus Service Operators Grant from my Department. The main criterion, other than being a local service, is that the service is one which is normally available to, and regularly used by, members of the general public.
Bus operators are reimbursed by local authorities for provision of mandatory free travel on local buses for those aged 60 or over and disabled people.
Local authorities have powers to provide financial support for the provision of a bus service where transport needs would not otherwise be met. The criteria for deciding which services should be supported are a matter for the local authority concerned.
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