§ Mr. Blenkinsopasked the Minister of Health if he will state the estimated catchment population figures for each regional 150W hospital board area according to the latest available information.
§ Mr. K. RobinsonI regret that this information is not available. Estimates of the population living in each Hospital Region at mid-1964 were published in the Registrar General's Quarterly Return for England and Wales for the fourth quarter of 1964 but these are not necessarily the same as the populations served by the hospitals within the region. Very rough projections of the population living in each Region at mid-1965 have been made and are given in the following table; these figures should, however, be treated with reserve.
Hospital Region Population (millions) Newcastle … 3.1 Leeds … 3.2 Sheffield … 4.5 East Anglian … 1.6 North West Metropolitan … 4.3 North East Metropolitan … 3.3 South East Metropolitan … 3.5 South West Metropolitan … 3.3 Oxford … 1.8 South Western … 3.0 Welsh … 2.7 Birmingham … 5.0 Manchester … 4.5 Liverpool … 2.2 Wessex … 1.9