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28 Oct 2008 : Column 896W—continued

Asthma: Prescriptions

Mr. Wareing: To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will add asthma to the list of conditions for which patients should receive free prescriptions; and if he will make a statement. [229751]

Phil Hope: As announced in the written ministerial statement to the House on 8 October 2008, Official Report, column 17WS, Professor Ian Gilmore has been asked to lead a review of prescription charges on how to implement our plans to phase in free prescriptions for those people in England with long term conditions effectively. We expect to publish the findings of this review in summer 2009.

Blood

Mr. Laxton: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what plans the Advisory Committee on the Safety of Blood, Tissues and Organs has to undertake bacterial infection in blood trials as part of their comprehensive review of pathogen inactivation for blood products in 2009. [229595]

Dawn Primarolo: Information from NHS Blood and Transplant trials including published literature on pathogen inactivation will be discussed as part of the independent Advisory Committee on the Safety of Blood, Tissues and Organs (SaBTO) review on options to reduce the risk of bacterial infection in blood. SaBTO does not commission research of this type. The Department in conjunction with the UK Blood Services have commissioned relevant research, trials and efficacy studies, which are due to be completed before any intervention is presented to SaBTO for their consideration and subsequently implemented.

Breast Cancer: Ethnic Groups

Harry Cohen: To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) when information on incidence and mortality will be collected for people with breast cancer from black, Asian and other minority ethnic backgrounds; and if he will make a statement; [229653]

(2) what the timeframe is for evaluating and agreeing models that collect data on prevalence of people with breast cancer from black, Asian and other minority ethnic backgrounds; and if he will make a statement. [229654]

Ann Keen: Incidence and mortality data are already collected for all patients with cancer, and compiled through the regional cancer registries. The National Cancer Intelligence Network (NCIN) has cross-linked the most recent 10 years of complete data from hospital episode statistics (HES) to cancer registry data, which has enabled ethnicity data from HES to be assigned to cancer registry records. Using this linked repository, the NCIN will publish its first report on cancer incidence and mortality in relation to ethnicity in 2009.

The NCIN, working with Macmillan and the Thames Cancer Registry, published preliminary figures on cancer prevalence in July 2008 and a full report is due to be published in January 2009. Work to publish figures on prevalence by ethnicity will follow the NCIN report on cancer incidence and mortality in relation to ethnicity.

Breasts: Health Services

Mr. Pelling: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many breast care nurses are working in the NHS. [230276]

28 Oct 2008 : Column 897W

Ann Keen: It is not possible to supply a figure for the number of nurses there are within the national health service working in breast care as this information is not
28 Oct 2008 : Column 898W
collected centrally. A break down of nurses by area of work is shown in the following tables.

Table 3a: NHS hospital and community staff: qualified nursing, midwifery and health visiting staff by area of work 1996 to 2007, England as at 30 September each year
Headcount
	1996	1997	1998	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007
All areas of work	301,253	300,467	304,563	310,142	316,752	330,535	346,537	364,692	375,371	381,257	374,538	376,737
Acute, elderly and general	160,165	159,934	161,980	165,643	170,261	177,904	187,439	201,184	203,358	205,611	204,112	205,601
Paediatric	15,520	15,341	16,266	16,689	16,922	17,640	18,014	18,437	18,917	19,178	18,634	18,923
Maternity	28,916	28,409	29,174	29,258	29,304	29,177	29,524	30,776	32,056	32,072	32,103	32,919
Psychiatry	38,827	39,109	38,141	38,999	39,529	41,539	42,654	44,728	47,390	48,553	48,478	48,499
Learning disabilities	12,105	11,111	10,736	9,923	9,497	9,776	9,550	8,950	8,656	8,824	7,583	7,618
Community services	44,914	45,898	47,601	48,972	50,481	52,401	53,814	57,588	61,559	63,257	62,343	61,997
Education staff	806	665	665	658	758	903	985	1,147	1,346	1,336	1,285	1,180

Table 3b: NHS HCHS: Qualified nursing, midwifery and health visiting staff by area of work 1996 to 2007, England as at 30 September each year
Full-time equivalent
	1996	1997	1998	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007
All areas of work	248,070	246,011	247,238	250,651	256,276	266,171	279,287	291,925	301,877	307,744	307,447	307,628
Acute, elderly and general	130,996	130,462	131,271	133,981	138,120	144,597	154,057	162,671	166,098	168,759	169,284	168,912
Paediatric	12,591	12,590	13,084	13,383	13,644	13,997	14,546	14,825	15,258	15,412	15,302	15,416
Maternity	23,192	22,776	23,059	22,919	22,776	22,684	23,043	23,758	24,463	24,750	24,961	25,654
Psychiatry	35,444	35,296	34,627	34,974	35,804	36,973	38,176	39,383	41,585	42,529	42,716	42,602
Learning disabilities	10,714	9,883	9,329	8,775	8,398	8,440	8,323	7,824	7,526	7,367	6,767	6,593
Community services	34,399	34,422	35,299	36,058	36,871	38,221	39,302	41,850	44,989	46,917	47,338	47,448
Education staff	733	582	568	562	662	760	819	968	1,140	1,119	1,079	1,004
Notes: 1. Totals may not equal the sum of component parts due to rounding and the inclusion of unclassifiable staff. 2. More accurate validation this year means that in 2006 9,858 duplicate records were identified and removed from the non-medical census. 3. The impact of duplicates on full-time equivalent has been minimal with the removal of 507.

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