§ Mr. David Watkinsasked the Secretary of State for Social Services (1) what facilities exist for providing additional funds for area health authorities where the allocation for the family planning service in hospitals has been exhausted;
(2) if he will list those area health authorities in England which have, to date, run out of funds for the family planning service in hospitals.
§ Mr. MoyleThe whole of the revenue sum available for hospital and community health services within regions in England was allocated at the beginning of the financial year to regional health authorities as block cash limit allocations to cover the whole of their services; they in turn made allocations to area health authorities. It is for area health authorities to review throughout the year the distribution of the block sum available to them between the various activities and services for which they are responsible. It would only be possible to say that funds for a particular service were exhausted if an area health authority had decided that having regard to priorities no additional expenditure could reasonably be incurred on that service.