§ Mr. NellistTo ask the Secretary of State for Social Services if, pursuant to his reply of Monday 30 November, 763W to the hon. Member for Coventry, South-East, he will make it his practice to collect information on the number of children waiting for heart surgery.
§ Mr. NewtonWaiting list statistics are assembled at three-monthly intervals, and relate to the number of patients waiting on a particular day. For relatively small groups, where the position could fluctuate greatly from day to day, such figures would mean little. I therefore think it is right to continue to collect figures centrally by specialty, not by individual condition.
All supplementary benefit cases City East North South West Total 7 August 1979 6,075 6,613 6,142 5,864 6,043 30,737 5 August 1980 6,223 6,933 6,224 5,909 6,576 31,865 5 August 1981 7,426 8,038 6,943 6,894 7,440 36,741 3 August 1982 9,078 9,315 7,865 8,766 8,508 43,532 2 August 1983 9,979 9,503 8,284 9,684 9,242 46,692 31 July 1984 10,806 10,263 8,639 10,306 9,856 49,870 31 July 1985 11,514 10,692 9,099 11,100 19,350 52,761 13 August 1986 12,203 10,861 9,870 10,821 11,050 54,805 28 July 1987 13,736 11,540 10,796 11,192 11,655 58,919 Supplementary pensioners 7 August 1979 2,418 2,735 2,844 2,343 2,856 13,196 5 August 1980 2,302 2,735 2,689 2,315 2,867 12,908 5 August 1981 2,341 2,809 2,663 2,421 2,904 13,138 3 August 1982 2,395 2,929 2,660 2,557 2,991 13,532 2 August 1983 2,196 2,612 2,496 2,538 2,951 12,793 31 July 1984 2,205 2,948 2,529 2,657 2,900 13,239 31 July 1985 2,355 3,239 2,543 2,899 2,955 13,991 13 August 1986 2,207 3,175 2,454 2,853 2,798 13,487 28 July 1987 2,221 3,709 2,523 3,033 2,949 14,435 Source: 100 per cent. count of cases in action.