§ Mr. Alfred Morrisasked the Secretary of State for Social Services, pursuant to the answer of 16 May, about continence advisers, if he will estimate the cost of collecting centrally information on the number of such advisers employed.
§ Mr. John Patten[pursuant to his reply, 21 May 1985, c. 401]: 'Continence advisers' are not a recognised National Health Service grade, nor are they identifiable from the standard list of occupation codes. By far the greater part of the cost of any special data collection exercise would fall upon health authorities. It is not possible to estimate what the total cost would be, as there would be substantial variations between regions, according to whether their own information systems enabled them to identify these staff, or whether they would have to collect the information by making special enquiries.