HC Deb 13 March 1989 vol 149 cc76-7W
Mr. Jack

To ask the Secretary of State for health (1) if he will publish in theOfficial Report a list of annual financial and statistical returns made by district and regional health authorities to his Department;

(2) if he will publish in the Official Report, for each statistical and financial return, a list showing which regional and district health authorities did not return such information on time;

(3) which health authorities did not return their financial returns for 1987–88 by the published deadline.

Mr. Freeman

1987–88 was the first year for the new KÖrner data sets for hospital activity, patient transport, manpower and finance; 1988–89 the first for the community and paramedical services. A list has been placed in the Library showing the statistical and financial returns required for 1987–88 ad 1988–89 including those which existed before the implementation of the KÖrner review recommendations.

Apart from the financial data which are currently submitted by each health authority, the general responsibility for submitting returns to the Department is on regional health authorities, who collate the returns from their districts; special health authorities submit their returns direct.

There are more than 50 annual returns required for each district to target dates given in the list. It is not practical to expect all these returns to arrive by the appropriate target date (some are at site level and there are nearly 2,500 sites for which returns are made) nor to list, for each, those authorities that missed it. A full analysis would incur disproportionate cost. It is estimated that 93 per cent. of all district-level aggregated returns about hospital patient activity and facilities, 70 per cent. of all manpower returns and some 90 per cent. of all finance returns had been received within three months of the target date. On returns at site level, performance varied between 50 and 80 per cent. completion within three months of the target.

Mr. Jack

To ask the Secretary of State for Health when he will next publish an edition of the Health Service costing returns.

Mr. Freeman

We intend to publish an edition of "Health Service Costing Returns" for 1987–88 during the summer.