§ Mr. Dobsonasked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will state for each year since 1980 the total value of the supplementary benefits paid to provide board and lodging for patients in private nursing homes under the Supplementary Benefit (Requirements) Regulations 1980 (S.I., 1980, No. 1299), and the number of patients helped thus, the amount spent by the National Health Service in placing patients in private nursing homes through contractual arrangements and the number of patients placed thus and the total number of patients in them.
§ Mr. RossiInformation is not held on the amount of supplementary benefit paid to patients in private nursing homes but I will write to the hon. Member shortly with the amount paid for board and lodging charges to people in private, voluntary or charitable homes. The number of supplementary benefit recipients in such homes as at December 1980 and 1981 was 13,000.
In the financial year 1981–82 expenditure by health authorities in England on contractual arrangements with private hospitals and nursing homes for the care and treatment of NHS patients totalled £30.9 million.
The provisional figures for activity in 1981 indicate there were 24,063 discharges and deaths during the year, and 2,743 beds occupied at the end of the year under such arrangements in England.
§ Mr. Dobsonasked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will publish in the Official Report so much information as he has as to the number of private hospitals and the numbers of beds in those hospitals and the number of private nursing homes and the number of beds in those nursing homes, for each region for each year since 1975.
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§ Mr. Geoffrey FinsbergI will write to the hon. Member with such of this information as can be provided without incurring disproportionate cost as soon as possible.