§ Mr. HayesTo ask the Secretary of State for Health what plans he has to publish the 1989–90 financial accounts special cost forms of individual health authorities; and if he will make a statement.
§ Mr. Dorrell[holding answer 5 June 1990]: The annual accounts of health authorities are regarded as documents within the public domain which are normally laid before authorities' members meeting in public session. The Department consolidates submitted annual accounts into an England summary which is presented to the National Audit Office by 30 November each year. It is the responsibility of the National Audit Office to publish the summarised accounts, following their audit, in an annual series of House of Commons papers.
Financial returns of health authorities which provide information on the costs of health authorities' services, are submitted to the Department which, after processing
1985–86 1986–87 1987–88 1988–89 1989–90 a. Drugs and Therapeutic Bulletin and Adverse Drug reaction Bulletin 581,300 728,500 452,000 660,600 723,500 b. Prescribes Journal — — 122,900 129,900 127,100 c. Health Trends — — 105,400 116,200 106,500 d. British National Formulary 736,400 835,300 924,400 987,500 1,054,900 e. PACT Data — — — 833,700 901,000 Footnotes
1. The Drugs and Therapeutics Bulletin and Adverse Drug Reaction Bulletin are funded jointly. Records are not held of disaggregated costs. Figures given are for printing and distribution costs invoiced in each of the years.
2. Details of costs for Prescriber's Journal and Health Trends are not available for 1985–86 and 1986–87 as they cannot be disaggregated from other Departmental printing and publishing costs. The costs provided for 1988–89 and 1989–90 are estimated as final costs are not yet available. Editions of both publications due for issue in February 1990 have been postponed to June/July 1990. Postage costs were paid in advance in 1989–90 but printing costs will be incurred in 1990–91.
3. The PACT system came into operation in August 1988—hence there are no costs attributable to PACT data in 1985–86, 1986–87 and 1987–88. The figures given are for the full cost of production and distribution including staff costs and systems support, maintenance and operation.
§ Mr. Michael MorrisTo ask the Secretary of State for Health how much public money is likely to be spent in each of the next five years on(a) employing independent medical advisers within the NHS, (b) the cost of running the medicines resource centre and the distribution of its monthly bulletin, (c) the provision of PACT data, (d) the distribution of the Drug and Therapeutics Bulletin, (e) the Prescribers Journal (f) Health Trends, (g) the British National Formulary (h) the Adverse Drug Reaction Bulletin and (i) the NHS management executive guide to self-audit and research, abridged and unabridged versions.
§ Mrs. Virginia Bottomley[holding answer 26 June 1990]: The information requested is not yet available for the next five years. The estimated costs in England for 1990–91 are supplied in the table. We expect costs of the same order for the following four years.
166W
1990–91 £ (a) Independent Medical Advisers (including support staff and training) 5,000,000 (b) Medicines Resource Centre (including distribution of monthly bulletins) 250,000 (c) PACT Data1 993,000 (d) Drug and Therapeutics Bulletin2 770,000 and Adverse Drug Reaction Bulletin2 (e) Prescribes' Journal 140,000 them, compiles salient data into national tables in an annual series of booklets. The publication covering the returns for 1989–90 is planned for early in the new year.