§ Mrs. BeckettTo ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) if she will list the hospitals or trusts in respect of which she has been formally consulted about partial or complete closure in the last three years;
(2) pursuant to her answer of 19 December, Official Report, column 983, what information is held regarding the number of accident and emergency departments currently threatened with closure or that have closed since April 1991;
(3) what information is provided to her Department by district health authorities, trusts, regional health authorities and NHS Executive on (a) hospital closures, (b) ward closures, (c) accident and emergency department closures, (d) reducing NHS beds and (e) increasing private beds and bed units;
(4) pursuant to her answer of 19 December, Official Report, column 983, how many hospital closures in England since April 1991 are known to her Department following objection to a proposed closure from a community health council;
(5) pursuant to her answer of 19 December, Official Report, column 983, what information her Department does not collected which is collected by the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Ireland offices on the number of hospitals closed since April 1991 or the number of accident and emergency departments currently threatened with closure.
§ Mr. Sackville[holding answer 13 January 1995]The Department does not routinely collect information on hospital, ward or accident and emergency department closures. Information is available centrally on proposals to close, or change the use of, health service facilities which are referred to Ministers for decision following objections from a community health council. A list of such proposed closures referred to Ministers in the period 1992–94 is available in the Library.
The Department collects information on the number of national health service beds which is published annually in the booklet "Bed Availability for England", copies of which are available in the Library. Information on private beds in NHS hospitals is not collected centrally. However, information on the number of private non-NHS beds is collected and published annually in "Private Hospitals, Homes and Clinics Registered Under Section 23 of the Registered Homes Act 1994", copies of which are also available in the Library.
Information collected by the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Ireland offices on hospital closures and accident and emergency departments threatened with closure is a matter for my right hon. Friends the Secretaries of State 36W for Scotland and for Wales and my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland.