§ Mr. Ralph Howellasked the Secretary of State for Wales what are the most recent figures for the distribution of health expenditure for each Welsh area expressed in per capita terms and categorised according to (a) hospital services expenditure, (b) community health and family practitioners' services expenditure and (c) total expenditure.
§ Mr. Wyn RobertsThe figures for 1983–84 are:
77WPricing Committee.
4. One Family Practitioner Committee covers the area served by the East Dyfed and Pembrokeshire District Health Authorities.
5. The figures do not include expenditure defrayed by the Welsh Health Technical Services Organisation, principally on the central capital programme. This expenditure would add £9.44 to the Wales Hospital Services figure, £2.90 to the Wales Other Services figure and £12.34 to the Wales total figure.
6. The population figures used are the mid-year estimates of home population for 1983 which are the latest available. It is emphasized that the distribution of funds amongst District Health Authorities in Wales reflects teaching hospital costs (South Glamorgan is a teaching authority), differences in expenditure arising from the provision of regional and psychiatric services, the incidence of centrally funded developments and progress towards the equalisation of resources. Equalisation requirements are determined by comparing the relative resource shares of authorities in the previous year with their corresponding shares of the population weighted for such factors as age, sex, variations in mortality and cross-boundary flows of patients. It is therefore not possible to draw reliable conclusions from a straight comparison of per capita expenditure using crude resident population figures.