HC Deb 22 March 1978 vol 946 cc612-3W
Mr. George

asked the Secretary of State for Social Services what are the number of retail pharmacies, family planning clinics, school clinics, health centres, maternity and child welfare clinics per thousand population in (a) Walsall, (b) the average for the West Midlands Area Health Authority, and (c) the average for England and Wales.

Mr. Moyle

The information is as follows:

the average per the West Midlands Area Health Authority and (c) the average per England and Wales.

Mr. Moyle

The provisional number of premises and places at 31st March 1977 for mentally handicapped people in staffed and unstaffed homes and hostels and the rates per 1,000 population are given in the table below:

authorities in England and Wales are further than 32.7 per cent. distant from the target laid down in area revenue targets and allocation for 1977–78 in the document "Towards a Strategy for Health 1978–79 to 1987–88" submitted to him by the West Midlands Regional Health Authority.

Mr. Moyle

Some regional health authorities in England based their assessment of area health authority "targets" for 1977–78 on the method recommended in the final Report of the Resource Allocation Working Party, but, as expected, others were only able to use the method recommended in the interim report of the working party. In most cases, because of lack of necessary information or local circumstances, the recommended methods of assessment were modified in various ways. It is not therefore possible to make valid comparisons between the area targets in different regions.