HC Deb 10 March 1988 vol 129 cc336-8W
Mr. Cran

To ask the Secretary of State for Social Services how many members of staff within his Department are located within each region outside London; what percentage this constitutes of staff within his Department; and what were the comparable figures, in absolute and percentage terms in 1979.

Mr. Portillo

Using the boundaries of social security regions departmental staff were located on 1 January 1988 as follows:

understand that in the last three financial years, the council's expenditure on research into meningitis and related illnesses has been as follows:

1984–85 1985–86 1986–87
£58,491 £26,956 £144,057

Figures for earlier years are not readily available.

The council is to convene a meeting of experts to discuss promising lines for meningitis research which may lead to a specific commission from the Department.

Other research in this field funded by the Department has been carried out by the Public Health Laboratory service board at its Manchester laboratory and the Centre for Applied Microbiology and Research, Porton Down. The cost of this cannot be separated from that of other research carried out by these laboratories.

The approximate value of commissions for research into meningitis and related illnesses placed directly by the Department since 1978–79 is:

1986–87 1987–88
£49,000 £17,400

This work mainly relates to support for the Gloucester health authority's meningococcal survey in the Stonehouse area.

Ms. Richardson

To ask the Secretary of State for Social Services how many cases of meningitis have been reported in the last 10 years; and of these how many were fatal.

Mrs. Currie

Meningitis may be caused by many different organisms. The numbers of notifications of acute meningitis (all forms) and of meningococcal meningitis in England and Wales from 1978 to 1987 are shown in the table. I assume that the hon. Member is interested particularly in meningococcal meningitis, and the table also gives deaths from this cause.

From the registration of the death, it is not possible to determine whether the case had been notified.

Number of (a) notifications of Acute Meningitis (all forms) and Meningococcal Meningitis, and (b) Deaths registered with Meningococcal Meningitis (ICD (8,9)1 036.0) as underlying cause of death
Persons, all ages England and Wales 1978–1987
(a) Notifications (b) Deaths
Year Acute meningitis Meningococcal meningitis Meningococcal meningitis
1978 1,698 501 42
1979 1,427 525 32
1980 1,796 509 26
1981 1,393 464 28
1982 1,272 410 20
1983 1,226 428 20
1984 1,230 401 26
1985 1,533 550 36
1986 2,172 870 44
21987 2,567 1,090 28

National Health Service activity, England
Year Discharges and deaths New out-patient attendances Total attendances Number of blood units issued1 2 Total number of pathology tests3
1979 5,400,120 7,713,465 34,099,725 1,705,190 63,042,614
1980 5,670,001 7,942,207 35,242,980 1,793,172 66,098,610
1981 5,759,877 8,024,679 35,571,384 1,836,674 68,685,979
1982 5,719,634 8,096,977 35,651,222 1,784,749 70,897,520
1983 6,018,585 8,310,942 36,519,550 1,829,988 74,506,823
1984 6,177,545 8,508,052 37,042,706 1,873,402 77,270,773
1985 6,353,812 8,682,128 37,440,333 1,843,569 79,569,650
1986 6,413,789 8,767,788 37,727,608 1,861,019 481,535,721
Percentage change over previous year
per cent. per cent. per cent. per cent. per cent.
1980 50 3.0 3.4 5.2 4.8
1981 1.6 1.0 0.9 2.4 3.9
1982 -0.7 0.9 0.2 -2.8 3.2
1983 5.2 2.6 2.4 2.5 5.1
1984 2.6 2.4 1.4 2.4 3.7
1985 2.9 2.0 1.1 -1.6 3.0
1986 0.9 1.0 0.8 0.9 2.5
1 Total of whole and concentrated reduced units issued.
2 England immunology and nuclear medicine.
3 Includes immunology and nuclear medicine.
4 Provisional

1International Classification of Diseases 8th and 9th revisions.

2Provisional—The 1987 figure for the number of notifications of acute and meningococcal meningitis is provisional as it is based on the notifications reported to OPCS each week. It does not include all late or corrected notifications, and is therefore liable to a small change at a later date.

The annual figures for deaths should be compared with caution as

  1. (i) a change in coding was introduced on 1 January 1984;
  2. (ii) figures for 1986 and 1987 exclude deaths in the first 28 days of life.