§ Ms. AbbottTo ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will make a statement on ethnic monitoring in mental hospitals.
§ Mr. FreemanInformation on the ethnic origins of detained mental patients in special hospitals has been recorded for some years. We are now exploring the feasibility of collecting data on the ethnicity of patients in NHS hospitals, including mental hospitals. If feasible, implementation would take some time because of the need to adapt health authorities' current data collection systems and in order to link with any question of ethnicity in the 1991 census.