§ 36. Ms Oona KingTo ask the Secretary of State for Health what assessment he has made of the extent of provision for speech therapy. [137672]
§ Mr. DenhamInformation on patient contacts with speech and language staff in England is collected on the Department of Health return KT 29 and published annually. The returns for 1998–99 indicated that the number of face to face contacts between patients and speech and language therapy staff was 3.5 million and the number of new patients seen was 327,000. The information for 1999–2000 will be published at the end of November and a copy of the summary will be available in the Library.