§ Mr. McNamaraasked the Secretary of State for Social Services (1) what is the average time taken between an application being made for attendance allowance and for a decision to be reached; and what is the same time on North Humberside.
(2) if he will introduce proposals to improve the procedures between making an application for attendance allowance and a decision being reached.
§ Mr. RossiThe average time taken to decide an initial claim for attendance allowance is about 12 weeks. I regret that equivalent information about claims from North Humberside is not available. We are continually studying ways of improving procedures for dealing with claims to benefit, but the need to obtain the medical evidence in attendance allowance claims, including the report of a medical examination which has to be carried out in the226W planning. As a means of retrospective analysis this should be treated with some caution. For example, hospital expenditure on geriatric, maternity, mental illness and mental handicap services has been based on the costs of treating such patients in single speciality hospitals. In addition, expenditure on generic services—eg community nursing, family practitioner services—which benefit a number of client groups cannot be apportioned between them. These, and other problems associated with using the programme budget methodology as a tool for monitoring past expenditure trends, are described more fully in the third report of the Social Services Committee 1980–81 (Vol II, page 58).
disabled person's own home, makes it unlikely that there can be any substantial reduction in the time taken to decide claims.