§ Mrs. BrookeTo ask the Secretary of State for Health what assessment has been made of how the outputs of Public Health Laboratory Service Groups of laboratories will be sustained from April 2003. [84252]
§ Ms BlearsI expect the outputs of those public health laboratory service laboratories that are transferring to national health service trusts to be sustained at the present level. They are being transferred with the resources necessary to maintain their outputs and the new posts of regional public health microbiologists will be positioned to facilitate their public health output.
§ Mrs. BrookeTo ask the Secretary of State for Health what cost-benefit analysis has been carried out by his Department into laboratory transfers from the(a) Public Health Laboratory Service, (b) National Radiological Protection Board, (c) Centre for Applied Microbiology Research and (d) National Focus for Chemical Incidents to a Health Protection Agency. [84251]
§ Ms BlearsThe bodies listed are all to be subsumed into the proposed Health Protection Agency in their entirety, after the public health laboratory service (PHLS) has transferred to national health service trusts some 30 of its laboratories that carry out general clinical diagnostic microbiology. These are the only laboratory transfers involved in creating the proposed Health Protection Agency.
The benefits of transferring laboratories of the PHLS to NHS trusts include:
They are essential to create a comprehensive, coherent surveillance system, as described in the Chief Medical Officer's strategy "Getting Ahead of the Curve".They will broaden the number of clinical staff required to report the occurrence of infectious diseases.They will place a duty of care on all microbiology laboratories to report for public health surveillance purposes.Generally, the transfers will bring public health activities within the mainstream of the NHS.The creation of the Health Protection Agency is to be carried out at no overall cost.