§ Mr. Phillip Oppenheimasked the Secretary of State for Social Services what were the numbers of doctors, nurses, midwives, dentists, opticians and pharmacists in (a) Derbyshire and (b) Amber Valley in 1979, 1983 and the latest year for which figures are available.
§ Mr. HayhoeI regret that figures for Amber Valley are not available centrally. To obtain information to this level of detail my hon. Friend may wish to contact the chairman of the South Derbyshire district health authority.
I regret that information on the total numbers of doctors and dentists employed in Derbyshire is also not available centrally. The contracts of senior doctors and dentists (that is consultants and senior registrars) are normally held by regional health authorities, and therefore the district health authorities in which they are employed cannot normally be identified. Such information as is available, excluding these staff, is given in the table.
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Number of Contracts Awarded In-House Estimated Annual Savings Number of Contracts Awarded to Contractors Estimated Annual Savings £ million £ million Domestic Services 294 21.0 121 19.5 Catering Services 159 5.7 8 0.9 Laundry Services 69 3.9 20 1.1 Total 522 30.6 149 21.5 Figures for 30 September 1984 are the latest currently available for all groups of staff, to the level of detail requested. Detailed figures for non-medical staff at 30 September 1985 will be available within the next few weeks.
NHS Staff1 in Derbyshire2 (WTE) Whole-Time Equivalent3 30 September 1979 1983 1984 1985 Medical staff (excluding consultants and senior registrars)4 250 270 280 280 Dental staff (excluding consultants and senior registrars)4 20 20 20 20 Nursing staff5 4,980 5,460 5,520 65,930 Midwifery staff5 300 310 310 Hospital Opticians8 — — — 7N/A Hospital Pharmacists 40 40 50 7N/A Source: DHSS Annual Censuses of Medical and Non-Medical manpower. 1 Does not include people working in the family practitioner service. 2 Staff in health authorities covering the county of Derbyshire. 3 All figures are independently rounded to the nearest 10. 4 Includes locums, hospital practitioners and part-time medical/dental officers (clinical assistants). 5 Includes agency staff. Figures not adjusted for reduction in nurses' working hours during 1980 (from 40 to 37½ hours per week). 6 Provisional figure. Separate figures for nursing staff and midwifery staff are not yet available. 7 Figures not yet available to this level of detail. 8 There were around 130 WTE hospital opticians employed by the NHS in England at 30 September 1984, therefore not all district health authorities employ them. It is likely that persons in Derbyshire requiring optical consultations would be referred to the nearest available hospital optical department, or in the case of specialised problems, to Moorfields Eye hospital.