§ Mr. DunnTo ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will publish in theOfficial Report, hospital expenditure per head for each of the regional health authorities in England for each of the last five years.
§ Mr. Freeman[holding answer 30 January 1990]: Figures for hospital services (HS) and hospital and community health services (HCHS) for the years 1984–85 to 1988–89 are shown in the table.
Prescription-only medicines in private nursing homes can be supplied by a pharmacist only on the signed order of a medical practitioner or dentist. It is for the dispensing pharmacist to satisfy himself that it is a proper prescription for that drug. The supply of medicines to patients in private nursing homes is almost always by means of prescriptions from a general practitioner in respect of individual patients. This method of prescribing helps to ensure that excessive quantitites of prescribed drugs are not being stockpiled. Medicines dispensed to individual patients become the property of that patient and, unless treatment has been completed, are normally given to the patient on discharge or otherwise destroyed. 233W The prescribing, dispensing and monitoring of the use of controlled drugs is governed by the Misuse of Drugs Regulations.
The Registered Homes Act 1984 requires the registering district health authority to inspect private nursing homes at least twice each year to ensure that adequate arrangements exist for the recording, safekeeping, handling and disposal of drugs in the possession of patients. In some private nursing homes a medical practitioner or pharmacist may be retained to advise the person registered as responsible for the home on how medicines should be controlled.