HC Deb 09 February 1982 vol 17 c333W
22. Mr. Chris Patten

asked the Secretary of State for Social Services how many people with arthritis are awaiting admission to National Health Service hospitals.

Dr. Vaughan

Information is not available in the form requested because waiting list figures are collected by specialties and not by diagnostic groups. Hospital treatment for arthritis is mostly given in the specialty of traumatic and orthopaedic surgery, in which total waiting list numbers fell from 130,959 on 31 December 1979 to 124,285 on 31 December 1980.