§ Mr. MorganTo ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what provision is made for the enumeration of tertiary referrals in hospital(a) in-patient and (b) out-patient treatment as separate consultant episodes; from what date this was done and what arrangements were made for reference back to fund-holding general practitioners for renewed authorisation; if he will estimate the impact of the change in recording and enumeration methods on achieving consistent time-series statistics on numbers of cash treated in hospital; and if he will make a statement.
§ Mr. Stewart[holding answer 10 July 1992]: Provision for the recording of information on in-patient tertiary referrals is included in the SMR 1 scheme which was introduced in 1961. The scheme, which records the information by consultant episode, has identified the referring general practitioner practice number since 1 January 1991.
Type of birth 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 Twin 658 611 607 677 665 681 721 721 706 617 731 709 Triplet 4 7 6 2 10 9 10 10 9 13 16 24 Quadruplet — — — — — — — — 1 2 1 2 Quintuplet — — — — — — — — — — — — Sextuplet — — — — — — — — — — — — Total maternities 68,689 68,865 65,963 64,776 64,800 66,342 65,456 65,839 65,842 63,090 65,556 66,630 Information on the number of multiple births in Scotland attributed to assisted reproduction is not available. Some information on these matters is published in the first annual report of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, and in earlier annual reports of the interim licensing authority, copies of which are available in the Library.