§ Mr. BurstowTo ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will list the budget for each patients forum, broken down by(a) staff and (b) non-staffing costs. [144809]
§ Ms Rosie WintertonThe Commission for Patient and Public Involvement in Health is resourced to support patients forums in England. It has contracted with not-for-profit voluntary sector organisations called forum support organisations to provide support services to patients forums. The details of those individual contracts are not available due to commercial confidentiality. The requirements for individual patients forums are agreed locally by each forum support organisation, taking into account the individual needs of that forum.
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§ Mr. BurstowTo ask the Secretary of State for Health how many members each patients forum had at 1 December, broken down by(a) sex and (b) ethnicity. [144810]
§ Ms Rosie WintertonAt 1 December 2003 the Commission for Patient and Public Involvement in Health (CPPIH) had received over 5,000 applications from members of the public volunteering to become members of the 572 patients forums. Each forum requires seven members to operate and at 1 December 2003, 498 forums had seven or more volunteers.
The information requested broken down by sex and ethnicity is not currently available. However the CPPIH will be analysing the demographic profile of all patients forums as part of its work to ensure that forums reflect their local communities.