§ Mr. Greville Jannerasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many fat pan fires were reported to him in each of the past 10 years; how many elderly people, how many children and how many others died or were severely injured, respectively, as a result of such fires; and what percentage such deaths and personal injuries represent of those caused by fires generally during that period.
§ Mr. MayhewThe number of fires in occupied buildings attended by local authority fire brigades in which the source of ignition was a cooking appliance and the material first ignited was fat is published annually in "Fire Statistics United Kingdom", copies of which are in the Library of the House; the latest available figure is in table 42 of the publication for 1980. Numbers of casualties and the age distribution of casualties from such fires could be
438WHealth Service staffing in England in September 1981; whether he will publish them in a table showing how numbers have increased since 1979; and if he will make a statement.
§ Mr. FowlerThe table which follows gives provisional figures in whole-time equivalent terms, for all the main National Health Service staff groups for September 1981, compared with the numbers employed in 1979. As explained in the footnotes to the table the differences between the figures are partly accounted for by reductions in the nurses working week.
The provisional overall increase in staff over the period was just over 47,000. Nurses and midwives accounted for about 34,000 of this increase. This reflects Government policy to improve our health services and in particular to increase expenditure on direct services to patients.
provided only at disproportionate cost but numbers of fatal and non-fatal casualties from all fires in occupied buildings in which a cooking appliance was the source of ignition and are published in "Fire Statistics United Kingdom" for 1979 onwards; the latest available figures are in table 26 of the publication for 1980. No information is available on the severity of non-fatal injuries. In 1979 and 1980 together, 21 per cent. of non-fatal casualties and 5 per cent. of deaths from fires in occupied buildings resulted from fires in which a cooking appliance was the source of ignition.