HC Deb 26 June 1992 vol 210 cc353-5W
Mr. Alton

To ask the Secretary of State for Health if she will arrange for her Department to receive copies of the annual reports and accounts of companies which provide abortion in private clinics.

Mr. Sackville

The Department's responsibility is to ensure that the requirements of the Abortion Act 1967 are satisfied and that patients receive an appropriate standard of medical care.

Mr. Alton

To ask the Secretary of State for Health if she will list those who have sight of the reports compiled by her Department's inspectors on private clinics which provide abortions.

Mr. Sackville

These reports are drawn up as confidential documents because of the information they contain on individual patients, doctors and others concerned with treatment etc. As such they are available only to those in the Department who need to see them in carrying out their duties of administering the 1967 Abortion Act and supporting regulations.

Mr. Alton

To ask the Secretary of State for Health if she will list the complication rates associated with individual clinics approved under section 1(3) of the Abortion Act 1967.

Mr. Sackville

I refer the hon. Member to the reply that I gave him on 19 June at col.706–7.

Mr. Alton

To ask the Secretary of State for Health if she will list the gestation and grounds of the seven abortions performed after 28 weeks gestation from 1 April 1991 to 30 September 1991.

Mr. Sackville

All of the post 28 week cases were performed under ground E (that there is a substantial risk that if the child were born it would suffer such physical or mental abnormalities as to be seriously handicapped).

Number of weeks gestation Number of abortions
29 4
30 1
33 1
36 1

Mr. Alton

To ask the Secretary of State for Health what information she has on procedures approved by other EC Governments for counselling mothers considering abortion.

Mr. Sackville

Information is available from some other EC countries about national laws as they apply to abortion but this does not extend to details about any counselling procedures.

Mr. Alton

To ask the Secretary of State for Health if she will extend the practice of providing information on the condition of the woman and her aborted pre-born child, together with the full statement on the medical condition of the child to those abortions performed on grounds of disability before 24 weeks.

Mr. Sackville

A large amount of information on abortion is already provided to the Department and published by the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys. During the passage of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990 an assurance was given that further information would be obtained in the special case of abortion after 24 weeks, and this is being done. We have no plans to extend these arrangements.

Mr. Alton

To ask the Secretary of State for Health if she will list the sources from which statistics are compiled by her Department on complications following abortion.

Mr. Sackville

The statistics published by the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys are derived from the abortion notification forms sent to the Chief Medical Officer.

Mr. Alton

To ask the Secretary of State for Health if she will make arrangements for her Department to receive the reports of local health authority inspections of private clinics approved under section 1(3) of the Abortion Act 1967.

Mr. Sackville

No.