| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
8 Feb 2010 : Column 707W—continued
Newspaper Licensing Agency
Mr. Hurd: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what payments (a) his Department and (b) each of its agencies made to the Newspaper Licensing Agency in each year of the last 10 years. [315592]
Phil Hope: The Media Centre holds the licence with the News Licensing Agency (NLA) for the Department and it is renewed on an annual basis. The figures are available from 2002-03 and are provided in the following table:
| Financial year | Total payments( 1) |
| (1) The figures provided are inclusive of VAT. | |
The following payments were made by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) to the NLA, for the financial periods 2005-06 to 2009-10 (to date).(1)
(1) MHRA did not make any payments to NLA before the period 2005-06.
| Financial year | Total payments( 1) |
| (1) The figures provided are inclusive of VAT. | |
No payments were made to the NLA by NHS Purchasing and Supply Agency in the last 10 years.
NHS: Drugs
Mr. Lansley: To ask the Secretary of State for Health to which medicines which (a) have been appraised and (b) are under appraisal by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence has its supplementary advice on appraising treatments which may extend life, at the end of life, adopted on 17 December 2008, been applied; what estimate he has made of the annual eligible patient population for each indication for each such medicine; what the outcomes were of each completed appraisal; and if he will make a statement. [315897]
Mr. Mike O'Brien: The information requested as at 5 February 2010 is shown in the following table.
NHS: Finance
John Smith: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what estimate he has made of the financial cost to acute NHS trusts which do not meet the 2010 National CQUIN goal to reduce avoidable death, disability and chronic ill health from venous thromboembolism (VTE) by providing a VTE risk assessment for 90 per cent. or more of adult inpatients on admission to hospital. [315480]
Ann Keen: The goal on carrying out venous thromboembolism (VTE) risk assessment for at least 90 per cent. of admitted patients is one of two nationally mandated goals within acute hospital commissioning for quality and innovation (CQUIN) schemes for 2010-11. These two national goals must be linked to around 0.3 per cent. of a trust's income. If a trust achieves both goals it will earn this money non-recurrently on top of the actual outturn value of its contracts. The weighting of the financial value between the two national CQUIN goals is agreed locally, but if they were equally weighted at 0.15 per cent. this could typically equate to a payment of between £200,000 and £1 million linked to VTE risk assessment, depending on the size of trust. Failure to achieve the goal will mean that the trust cannot earn this CQUIN payment from its commissioners. The CQUIN framework applies to providers on NHS Standard Contracts funded by the national health service in England.
NHS: Sick Leave
Mr. Spring: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what his estimate of the number of NHS staff on paid sick leave was on the latest date for which figures are available; and how much has been paid to NHS staff while on sick leave in each of the last five years. [315647]
Ann Keen: Information is not available in the form requested. The NHS Information Centre has just begun publishing quarterly figures on national health service sickness absence drawn from the NHS electronic staff record. Between April and June 2009, the average sickness absence rate for the NHS in England was 4.05 per cent. However, there is a seasonable element to sickness absence. The Boorman Review of NHS Health and Well-being (November 2009), reported an estimated annual rate of 4.5 per cent.
Individual pay information is not held centrally, and is held locally at trust level. It is therefore not known how many staff are on paid or unpaid sickness. However, the Boorman Review, estimated that reported levels of sickness absence results in a loss of 10.3 million days per year, equivalent to 45,000 whole-time equivalent staff and an estimated annual direct cost of £1.7 billion.
NHS: Standards
Mr. Barron: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what recent assessment he has made of the effects on health outcomes of the Quality and Outcomes Framework. [315783]
Mr. Mike O'Brien: The Department has made a number of assessments of the effects of the Quality and Outcomes Framework. A copy of these documents have been placed in the Library.
Nurses: Schools
Mr. Amess: To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) how many children resident in (a) Southend West constituency, (b) Essex and (c) England were seen by a fully qualified school nurse in each year since 2004; [315740]
(2) what estimate he has made of the percentage of schools in (a) Southend West constituency, (b) Essex and (c) England that were visited by a fully qualified school nurse in (i) 2009, (ii) 2007 and (iii) 2005. [315742]
Ann Keen: The information requested is not collected centrally.
Our child health strategy, "Healthy lives, brighter futures", published in February 2009, recognised the importance of school health services, in particular, that
school health teams provide a key link between education and health services, providing guidance and support on a range of health-related issues.
The "Healthy Child Programme", published in October 2009, will be of further assistance in determining the composition of school health teams, which will vary from locality to locality according to local needs and service configurations. In most cases, they will have school nurses at their core, working with other professionals and support staff. The latest available figures for the number of national health service employed nurses working in a school environment show an increase of over 50 per cent., from 2,409 in 2004 to 3,643 nurses in 2008.
Copies of both publications have already been placed in the Library.
Mr. Amess: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what recent assessment he has made of the effects of the provision of school nurses in each of the last five years on children's health; what estimate he has made of the volume of work undertaken by school nurses in each such year; and if he will make a statement. [315741]
Ann Keen: The Department has commissioned a report from the Thomas Coram Research Unit on "Promoting the health of children and young people through schools: the role of the nurse". This study, which will conclude shortly, examines the ways in which nurses are enabled and supported to contribute to the promotion and safeguarding of children and young people's health and wellbeing within school settings. It will seek to identify strategic arrangements most likely to maximise the potential of nurses' contribution, and to inform local decisions on the optimal composition of the school health team.
Mr. Amess: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many qualified nurses there were in (a) Southend West constituency, (b) Essex and (c) England in each year since 2000. [315743]
Ann Keen: The number of qualified nurses working in the trusts that make up the requested areas are shown in the following table:
| Next Section | Index | Home Page |