Mental Health (Hansard, 12 July 2002)

§ Mr. Heald
To ask the Secretary of State for Health what proportion of trusts have mixed-sex mental health wards. [67957]

§ Mr. Hutton
All mental health wards generally care for both men and women. To provide the required levels of privacy and dignity for patients, wards are split into single sex bays, or single rooms, or otherwise configured to provide adequate segregation of gender. It is the responsibility of each National Health Service trust to determine the most appropriate configuration to meet their specific requirements.
The Department has set three objectives which trusts must meet to be deemed compliant. These objectives refer to single sex accommodation and not single sex wards.
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The target is for three objectives to be achieved in 95 per cent. of trusts by December 2002.
The three objectives are: To ensure that appropriate organisational arrangements are in place to secure good standards of privacy and dignity for hospital patients; To achieve the patient's charter standard for segregated washing and toilet facilities across the NHS; and Provide safe facilities for patients in hospitals who are mentally ill which safeguard their privacy and dignity.

§ Mr. Heald
To ask the Secretary of State for Health what progress has been made on recruitment and retention as a result of the National Director of Mental Health's working group. [67974]

§ Mr. Hutton
The national director for mental health's working group has taken a number of practical steps related to the recruitment and retention of psychiatrists. The group has initiated an attrition study of psychiatric trainees, a study of flexible trainees in psychiatry, a survey into the retirement intentions of consultant psychiatrists and a study of psychiatrists' workload. The group has provided psychiatric input to international recruitment and work is in progress to recruit psychiatrists through the general global recruitment campaign and the International Fellowship scheme.
The group has developed a new model of psychiatrists' numbers, tracking recruitment and retention from graduation to retirement and an action plan based on these figures is being prepared.
Recruitment and retention issues relating to the mental health workforce as a whole are taken forward by the mental health care group workforce team.

§ Mr. Heald
To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many more staff will need to be recruited to acute mental health wards as a result of implementation of the Working Time Regulations; and if he will make a statement as to his plans. [67971]

§ Mr. Hutton
The working time regulations currently fully apply to all staff except for doctors in training.
The Department is currently in the process of supporting a range of pilot projects to test solutions to implementation of the working time directive. This includes mental health services.

§ Mr. Heald
To ask the Secretary of State for Health which health authorities offer women-only day centres for mental health patients. [68272]

§ Jacqui Smith
This information is not currently available centrally. The mental health service mapping system is being refined to enable the Department to gauge progress against this NHS Plan commitment.

§ Mr. Heald
To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many whole-time equivalent community psychiatry and other psychiatry nurses there are. [68156]

§ Mr. Hutton
Non-medical workforce information is collected each year as at 31 September, the latest being September 2001.
As at 31 September 2001, there were 11,040 community psychiatric nurses and 25,930 other psychiatric nurses working in the National Health Service.