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Departmental Public Expenditure

Mr. Heald: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what the cost to his Department of provision of office facilities to (a) special advisers and (b) press officers (i) was in the last 12 months and (ii) has been since 1997-98. [233527]

Mr. Bradshaw: It is not possible to calculate the cost of the provision of office facilities to special advisers and press officers for the period in question.

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General Practitioners: Pharmacy

Miss McIntosh: To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) how many prescription items have been dispensed by dispensing doctors in (a) Vale of York constituency and (b) England in the last three years; [232991]

(2) how many prescription items have been dispensed in the community by community pharmacists, appliance contractors and dispensing doctors in (a) Vale of York constituency and (b) England in the last three years. [233210]

Dawn Primarolo: The number of prescription items that have been dispensed in the community by community pharmacists, appliance contractors and by dispensing doctors is available for primary care trusts (PCTs) in England. The figures are based on a one in 20 sample of prescriptions. It is not possible to separate the figures for community pharmacists and appliance contractors so the combined figure is given in each case. The figures provided are for the PCT which is the closest match to the Vale of York, namely North Yorkshire and York PCT.

Number of prescription items dispensed in the community in England by dispenser type in calendar years from 2005 to 2007( 1)
Thousand
Region	Dispenser type	2005	2006	2007
England	Community Pharmacists and Appliance Contractors	651,536.6	682,407.0	722,937.9
	Dispensing Doctors	49,328.9	52,493.6	55,917.7
	Total(1)	700,865.5	734,900.6	778,855.6
North Yorkshire and York PCT	Community Pharmacists and Appliance Contractors	8,388.4	8,650.8	9,108.7
	Dispensing Doctors	2,553.0	2,670.4	2,820.8
	Total(1)	10,941.4	11,321.2	11,929.5
(1) Personally administered items are excluded from this analysis. Source: PCA data.

HIV Infection

Anne Milton: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what the average life expectancy was of a patient diagnosed with HIV in each year from 2001. [234983]

Dawn Primarolo: A recently published article in The Lancet (2008; 372:293-99) provides estimates of life expectancy for HIV-infected adults receiving combination antiretroviral therapy. It is based on analysis of over 43,000 patients from industrialised countries, including some from the UK. The median life expectancy for such patients was 63 years for those diagnosed at age 20 and 67 years for those diagnosed at age 35.

Figures are not available for each year since 2001, but the estimated life expectancy increased between the first period studied in the research (1996-99) and the last (2003-05). For those patients starting combination therapy at age 20, life expectancy increased from an estimated 56.1 years in 1996-99 to 69.4 years in 2003-05. Equivalent figures at age 35 are from 60 years to 72.3 years.

Anne Milton: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what the rates of infection for (a) HIV, (b) genital herpes, (c) syphilis, (d) gonorrhea and (e) chlamydia were in each month from 2001 to 2008. [235086]

Dawn Primarolo: Rates of diagnoses for individuals accessing care in genito-urinary medicine (GUM) clinics reported to the Health Protection Agency (HPA) are not available by month but are available by year.

The following table gives the rate of diagnoses of anogenital herpes, primary and secondary infectious syphilis, gonorrhoea, Chlamydia and new HIV diagnoses and HIV infected individuals accessing care, for all ages in the United Kingdom, per 100,000 population; 2001 to 2007, the latest year available.

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	Anogenital herpes( 1)	Primary and secondary infectious syphilis( 1)	Gonorrhoea( 1)	Chlamydia( 1)	New HIV diagnoses( 2)	HIV infected individuals accessing care( 3)
2001	32.0	1.3	40.1	129.4	8.6	44.6
2002	32.7	2.1	43.2	147.7	10.6	53.2
2003	32.3	2.8	41.9	161.5	12.3	61.6
2004	31.9	3.8	37.3	175.0	12.7	69.6
2005	32.9	4.5	32.0	181.7	12.8	78.1
2006	36.0	4.4	31.2	187.8	12.1	86.0
2007	43.0	4.4	30.9	201.3	12.7	92.8
Notes: 1. Office for National Statistics population data were used to calculate rates. New HIV and AIDS diagnoses: 2. Rates of diagnoses of HIV infections do not reflect new HIV infections as the long period of asymptomatic HIV infection results in a long average time between infection and diagnosis. 3. Figures may include some duplicate records of the same individuals, which are not removed because differences in the information supplied means they cannot be linked. KC60 return and STISS: 4. The data available from the KC60 statutory returns and STISS are for diagnoses made in GUM clinics only. Diagnoses made in other clinical settings, such as General Practice, are not recorded in the KC60 dataset or STISS. 5. The data available from the KC60 statutory returns and STISS are the number of diagnoses made, not the number of patients diagnosed. Individual patients may have more than one diagnosis. 6. The information provided has been adjusted for missing clinic data. Sources: (1)( )HPA: KC60 returns and Sexually Transmitted Infections Surveillance Scotland (STISS) (2) New HIV and AIDS diagnoses (3) Annual survey of HIV-infected persons accessing care.

As HIV is a long-term, chronic condition, many individuals are living with HIV infection who were diagnosed in previous years. Therefore, the last column in the table shows the rates of diagnosed HIV infection among the general population (all ages). The rate will be higher among those aged 15 to 59 years. There are also persons living with HIV infection in the UK who are unaware of their infection—this proportion was approximately one in every three HIV-infected persons in 2007.

In addition to cases in GUM clinics, the National Chlamydia Screening Programme (NCSP) provides screening to asymptomatic people aged under 25 years in England and was launched in April 2003. The following table shows the positivity among those aged 13 to 24 years screened for Chlamydia during the period 1 April 2003 to 30 June 2008. The figures presented are positivity measures among those screened and not rates of infection in the general population.

Table 2: Positivity among those aged 13 to 24 years screened for Chlamydia , National Chlamydia Screening Programme: 1 April 2003 to 30 June 2008.
Quarter	Number of negative screens (a)	Number of positive screens (b)	Total number of screens( 1)	Positivity (a/a+b) 100( 1)
1 April 2003 to 30 June 2003	1,038	129	1,177	11.1
1 July 2003 to 30 September 2003	2,192	284	2,553	11.5
1 October 2003 to 31 December 2003	4,861	543	5,585	10.0
1 January 2004 to 31 March 2004	7,002	800	8,076	10.3
1 April 2004 to 30 June 2004	7,243	981	8,597	11.9
1 July 2004 to 30 September 2004	10,824	1,533	12,719	12.4
1 October 2004 to 31 December 2004	15,795	1,837	17,996	10.4
1 January 2005 to 31 March 2005	21,011	2,433	23,992	10.4
1 April 2005 to 30 June 2005	21,480	2,495	24,662	10.4
1 July 2005 to 30 September 2005	19,643	2,324	22,652	10.6
1 October 2005 to 31 December 2005	27,995	2,959	31,622	9.6
1 January 2006 to 31 March 2006	29,710	3,225	33,782	9.8
1 April 2006 to 30 June 2006	26,583	2,871	30,129	9.7
1 July 2006 to 30 September 2006	29,714	3,640	34,221	10.9
1 October 2006 to 31 December 2006	36,954	4,195	42,027	10.2
1 January 2007 to 31 March 2007	50,227	5,299	56,784	9.5
1 April 2007 to 30 June 2007	51,320	5,453	58,386	9.6
1 July 2007 to 30 September 2007	56,728	6,054	64,891	9.6
1 October 2007 to 31 December 2007	80,953	7,470	91,055	8.4
1 January 2008 to 31 March 2008	115,519	10,100	129,172	8.0
1 April 2008 to 30 June 2008	112,451	10,250	126,119	8.4
All quarters	729,243	74,875	826,197	9.3
(1) Total screens includes screens with insufficient sample, inhibitory and equivocal test results and therefore might not equal number of negative + number of positive screens Source: The NCSP Core Dataset.

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