HL Deb 25 June 1997 vol 580 c170WA
The Countess of Mar

asked Her Majesty's Government:

How many Gulf veterans who have been examined under the Medical Assessment Programme have been diagnosed as having an enlarged liver or liver malfunction, and to what this attributed.

Lord Gilbert

In order that data can be collected on a form suitable for future publication, diagnostic information from the records of individual patients of the Medical Assessment Programme (MAP) is coded according to Revisions 9 and 10 of theInternational Classification of Diseases and entered in a database. Owing to pressure on resources, the diagnostic coding, and the preparation of statistical data has so far been completed for only a small proportion of the veterans who have been seen and diagnosed by the MAP physicians. Accordingly, the information requested can at present regrettably not be provided.

As the Minister of State for the Armed Forces announced last month, extra resources are being made available to the MAP.

Urgent work is in hand to appoint extra staff to the MAP, both medical and administrative. Ensuring that the MAP database is complete and up-to-date will be a priority task for the administrative staff.