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23 Jun 2008 : Column 110W—continued
The Department does not employ permanent non-civil servants.
For temporary and agency workers, financial year figures since April 2005 are as follows:
| £000 | |
| Note: The 2006-07 figure is based on a scaling up of expenditure in the first 11 months of the year. The 2007-08 figure is based on a detailed analysis of expenditure in March 2008 and assumes the same level of monthly expenditure was incurred throughout the year. | |
Departmental Training
Mr. Hoban: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how much (a) his Department and (b) its agencies spent on training courses for staff in the last (i) 12 months and (ii) five years. [210556]
Mr. Bradshaw: Spending on training courses by the Department and its agencies over the last 12 months and the last five years is as follows:
| £ | ||
| Last 12 months | Last five years | |
| Note: The Department has insufficient data available to provide an accurate figure for the last five years. The Department's figure for the last 12 months covers corporate training only. There was local expenditure in addition to this. Information on this is not held centrally and to gather it would involve disproportionate cost. | ||
Departmental Working Hours
Mr. Hoban: To ask the Secretary of State for Health pursuant to the answer of 30 April 2008, Official Report, column 446W, on departmental working hours, for how long contracted hours have differed for staff within and outside London; and what the reasons were for the different contracts. [211967]
Mr. Bradshaw:
Until the mid-1990s the working hours of staff within and outside London were common across all Government Departments. The shorter number of contracted hours in London was in recognition of generally longer travelling to work times. Since then
Government Departments have taken on responsibility for deciding on many aspects of the terms and conditions of their staff, but the Department has retained the previous civil service wide arrangements on working hours.
Drugs: Rehabilitation
Norman Lamb: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what the average waiting time was between referral and treatment for drug treatment programmes in each primary care trust in each of the last five years. [210406]
Dawn Primarolo: Waiting times in the drug treatment system in England is not available over the last five years. Published data prior to April 2006 reported average waiting times, but since then published data have reported the numbers of clients in structured drug treatment (as a percentage of the total treatment population) who wait three weeks or less.
During 2006-07, 89 per cent. of service users of the drug treatment system in England waited three weeks or less to access specialist drug treatment.(1)
Waiting time targets for each drug action team area in England and their performance against these are available in each area's annual treatment plan which are available at www.nta.nhs.uk. These data are presented in the form of the percentage of drug treatment clients who accessed the treatment they required within three weeks of assessment.
(1 ) Source:
National Treatment Agency 2006-07 Annual Report.
Norman Lamb: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many patients (a) under 18 and (b) 18 and over were referred to drug treatment centres in each of the last five years, broken down by strategic health authority area of residence. [210407]
Dawn Primarolo: Data on referrals are not collected centrally.
However, published annual data on the numbers of clients in specialist drug treatment services in England by age (under 18 and 18 and over) for the four years between 2003-04 and 2006-07 are provided in the following tables. Data are not yet available for 2007-08.
Changes in the boundaries of some strategic health authority areas (SHA) in recent years, do not allow direct comparisons of drug treatment data over time by SHA area. Published information on clients attending specialist drug treatment services in England is routinely presented either as a national figure or by local drug action team/partnerships areas, which are co-terminus with local authority areas.
| Age of clients in treatment, between 2003-04 and 2006-07 | ||||
| Age range | 2003-04 | 2004-05 | 2005-06 | 2006-07 |
| Note: The increase in young people appearing in the drug treatment numbers reflects an increase in treatment capacity and accuracy in reporting rather than an increase in the incidence of young people developing substance misuse dependency. | ||||
Norman Lamb: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many specialist youth drug dependency workers in each strategic health authority area there are; and how many there were in each of the last five years. [210408]
Dawn Primarolo: The Department does not collect information on the numbers of specialist youth drug dependency workers employed in England.
Fairtrade Initiative
Mr. Moore: To ask the Secretary of State for Health pursuant to the Answer of 22 February 2008, Official Report, column 1072W, on the Fairtrade initiative, how much his Department spent on refreshments for official departmental meetings and engagements in each of the last three financial years; and what percentage of this total was spent on Fairtrade products. [211563]
Mr. Bradshaw: The Department spent the following on refreshments for official meetings and engagements during the last three years:
| £ | |
The Department does not supply any Fairtrade products for refreshments for official meetings and engagements.
Food Standards Agency: Overseas Visits
Philip Davies: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how much the Food Standards Agency spent on international travel and accommodation to outline and promote its multiple traffic light labelling scheme in each of the last two years [211101]
Dawn Primarolo: The Food Standards Agency spent £380 in 2006-07 and £4,835 in 2007-08 on international travel and accommodation to outline and promote multiple traffic light labelling.
General Practitioners
Mr. Lansley: To ask the Secretary of State for Health pursuant to the answer of 15 May 2008, Official Report, columns 1673-74W, on general practitioners, (1) whether officials in his Department conducted trials of different weightings; [209178]
(2) what weighting was given to each of the individual measures within each of the three indicators; [209179]
(3) what the basis was for the decision to weight the different indicators in this way. [209180]
Mr. Bradshaw:
Officials in the Department worked with the national health service to identify the range of indicators that best determined those primary care trusts (PCTs) with greatest needs. The weighting agreed reflects discussions held with the NHS to ensure the new investment to procure additional capacity would not result in an increase in resources in areas that
already had above the national average number of primary medical care clinicians within the PCT. The following table shows the weightings given to the individual numbers.
General Practitioners: Shropshire
Mark Pritchard: To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will hold discussions with Shropshire GPs on proposals to introduce polyclinics. [209006]
Mr. Bradshaw: The Government do not have any policy proposals to develop polyclinics. The Government are investing £250 million to introduce 152 general practitioner (GP)-led health centres to improve access and responsiveness, and 100 new GP practices in under-served areas. It is for primary care trusts (PCTs) to set out their proposals for these new GP-led health centres following consultation with patients, GPs and others, which focus on local needs and preferences. Local PCTs are ensuring strong public and clinical engagement when making decisions on the location and range of the services to be procured locally and Shropshire GPs should be engaging with their local PCT on these matters.
Health Education: First Aid
Bob Spink: To ask the Secretary of State for Health which ambulance services are working in partnership with local authorities to provide first aid training for school pupils; and if he will make a statement. [210682]
Mr. Bradshaw: The information is not collected centrally.
Health Education: Skin Cancer
Norman Lamb: To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of skin cancer awareness programmes; and if he will make a statement; [212239]
(2) how much was spent on skin cancer awareness programmes by his Department in each of the last five years. [212240]
Dawn Primarolo: SunSmart, run by Cancer Research UK on behalf of the United Kingdom Health Departments is the UK’s national skin cancer prevention campaign. It provides information about skin cancer and sun protection for the public and professionals. Surveys carried out since the campaign’s launch in 2003 show progress, for example evidence of increased public knowledge about risk factors for skin cancer.
The Department of Health in England contributed funding of around £100,000 towards the launching of the SunSmart campaign in March 2003. The campaign has received further funding in the last four financial years as follows:
| £ | |
Hospitals: Admissions
Norman Lamb: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many (a) children aged under 16 years, (b) persons aged 16 to 18 years, (c) persons aged 18 to 65 years and (d) persons aged over 65 years were admitted to hospital in each strategic health authority in each of the last five years with a primary or secondary cause of admissions listed as (i) sunburn, (ii) sunstroke and (iii) dehydration in each of the last five years. [212241]
Dawn Primarolo: Information has been placed in the Library which shows the number of hospital admissions for which sunburn, effects of heat and light (which includes sunstroke), and volume depletion (i.e. dehydration) are recorded as either primary or secondary diagnoses, by strategic health authority of treatment and age group.
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