§ Mr. Bill O'BrienTo ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will make a statement on his advice to hospital trust boards on the implementation of the National Booked Admissions Policy. [94146]
§ Mr. DenhamThe National Booked Admissions Programme was established last year with 24 pilot sites across England. It has since been extended to a further 60 pilots plus nine looking specifically at cancer services. These pilots were set up to enable patients to pre-book their admission dates or hospital appointments. The Programme is closely managed and supported by the National Patients' Access Team, which is currently headed by Peter Homa, and National Health Service Executive Regional Offices. They are closely monitoring the pilots' performance against outcome plans and milestones. Support includes training in project management and redesign techniques and also regular meetings where all the pilot sites discuss progress and share experiences.
The first wave of the programme and the cancer work is being evaluated by the Health Services Management Centre, based at the University of Birmingham, over a 3-year period. They will report at regular intervals, to enable lessons learnt to be fed back to the pilot sites and spread more widely to the NHS. The first initial evaluation report will be published shortly and will be sent to all health authorities, trusts and primary care groups.
478WOn 2 September, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister announced the 60 new pilots being set up, benefiting 1.5 million patients, taking the total benefiting from the programme to around 2 million.