§ Mrs. Renée Shortasked the Secretary of State for Social Services what National Health Service provision there is for the evaluation of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) technology; and if he will extend these facilities.
§ Mr. John PattenThe Department has been keeping in close touch with recent rapid advances in deoxyribonucleic acid technology, which hold the promise of improved and earlier diagnosis of many genetically determined disorders through the use of gene probes.270W Much of this work is still at the research stage, but the Department is actively considering how the new techniques might be used in the NHS once they have been validated, and how that use might be evaluated to ensure they are made available cost-effectively.