§ Mr. DonohoeTo ask the Secretary of State for Scotland (1) when Ayrshire and Arran health board expects to be able to produce the 1993 statistics relating to limb defects within the health board's area; and for what reasons there has been a delay in collating the information;
(2) what procedures are used by Ayrshire and Arran health board to collate information relating to the incidence of limb defects in children within the health board's area.
§ Mr. LangStatistics on the incidence of limb defects and other congenital anomalies are produced for all health board areas by the information and statistics division of the Common Services Agency. The data are compiled using three sources: the neonatal discharge record—form SMR11—the information on which is provided by each health board, the Scottish stillbirth and neonatal mortality study, and admissions to hospital in the first year of life—form SMR1.
Information on all congenital anomalies, including limb defects, is published on each calendar year's birth cohort. A provisional data set based on the first two sources is published in the summer following the calendar year, and a final data set on the same birth cohort a year later, when all hospital admissions have been added to the provisional data.
The provisional data for 1993 on reduction deformities of limbs by area of residence are as follows:
Board area of residence Upper limb Lower limb Unspecified limb Argyll and Clyde — — — Ayrshire and Arran 3 — — Borders — — — Dumfries and Galloway — — — Fife 3 — — Forth Valley — — — Grampian 2 — — Greater Glasgow 1 — — Highland — — — Lanarkshire 1 — — Lothian 1 1 — Orkney — — — Shetland — — — Tayside 2 2 1 Western Isles — — — Scotland 13 3 1 Source: SMR11 neonatal record.