§ Lord Clement-Jonesasked Her Majesty's Government:
How many of the public health laboratories scheduled for transfer to their local National Health Service trusts provide food, water and environmental services to local authorities; how many hold United Kingdom Accreditation Service 151WA accreditation; and what are the comparable figures for National Health Service trust managed laboratories. [HL540]
§ Lord Hunt of Kings HeathOf the 31 Public Health Laboratory Service laboratories scheduled for transfer to National Health Service trusts, 22 analyse food, water and environmental samples for local authorities. All 22 are United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS) accredited. The other nine receive samples direct from environmental health officers, which are then forwarded to other public health laboratories for testing.
We are not aware of any NHS laboratories that are UKAS accredited, since the main accreditation system for them is with Clinical Pathology Accreditation (UK) (CPA). Forty-seven per cent of NHS laboratories have full accreditation with CPA and a further 21 per cent have conditional accreditation.
We do not have any statistical data on the number of NHS laboratories that provide a food, water or environmental service to local authorities.
Eighty-seven per cent of public health laboratories in England hold full accreditation with CPA and a further 11 per cent hold conditional accreditation.
§ Lord Clement-Jonesasked Her Majesty's Government:
How many of the public health laboratories scheduled for transfer to their local National Health Service trusts hold contracts for providing support to National Health Service microbiology departments. [HL541]
§ Lord Hunt of Kings HeathAll of the 31 laboratories scheduled to be transferred to National Health Service trusts have contracts with their local NHS trusts for providing microbiological services.
§ Lord Clement-Jonesasked Her Majesty's Government:
What assessment has been made of the likely impact on public health of the transfer of public health laboratories to their local National Health Service trusts. [HL543]
§ Lord Hunt of Kings HeathThe transfer of some of the laboratories of the Public Health Laboratory Service to National Health Service trusts is one part of the preparation for creating the proposed health protection agency, which is itself one element of implementing the Chief Medical Officer's strategy for combating infectious diseases,Getting Ahead of the Curve. Our assessment of the impact of each element is therefore in the context of the entire strategy.
The transfers of these laboratories to NHS trusts will bring public health activities within the mainstream of the NHS and thereby strengthen and enhance its arrangements for protection of public health. In particular, the transfer will strengthen the four public health functions of all NHS laboratories (reporting the occurrence of infectious diseases, submitting relevant samples to reference laboratories 152WA for detailed testing, assisting with the investigation of outbreaks and with the development and implementation of local policies in infectious disease control) by providing the opportunity and incentive for all NHS microbiology laboratories to build on the examples of good practice in current PHLS laboratories. These transfers are essential to create a comprehensive, coherent surveillance and outbreak response system, as described in Getting Ahead of the Curve, and to ensure robust microbiology services to help implement the action plans for turberculosis, healthcare acquired infections, antibiotic resistance and blood-borne viruses.
§ Lord Clement-Jonesasked Her Majesty's Government:
What proportion of public health laboratories have adopted standard methods; and what are the comparable figures for National Health Service microbiology laboratories. [HL573]
§ Lord Hunt of Kings HeathAll public health laboratories have adopted standard methods. Information on the adoption of standard methods by National Health Service pathology laboratories is not collected centrally. Through its Pathology Modernisation Programme, the Department of Health is encouraging NHS pathology laboratories to adopt standard procedures and methods. We anticipate that this is one area where the example of good practice current in the PHLS will be taken up more widely as PHLS laboratories are transferred to the NHS.
§ Lord Clement-Jonesasked Her Majesty's Government:
How many public health laboratories scheduled for transfer to National Health Service trusts hold Clinical Pathology Accreditation accreditation; and how this compares with National Health Service microbiology laboratories. [HL574]
§ Lord Hunt of Kings HeathAll of the 31 Public Health Laboratory Service laboratories scheduled for transfer to National Health Service trusts are accredited with Clinical Pathology Accreditation (26 unconditional and five conditional).
Eighty-one NHS microbiology laboratories are accredited with Clinical Pathology Accreditation (UK) Ltd (CPA), plus a further 13 which are managed jointly by both the PHLS and the NHS (Source: CPA web-site).
§ Lord Clement-Jonesasked Her Majesty's Government:
What number of public health laboratories report to the Communicable Disease Surveillance Centre; what are the comparable figures for National Health Service microbiology laboratories; and what proportion of the surveillance data collected comes from each source. [HL575]
§ Lord Hunt of Kings HeathInformation available from the Communicable Disease Surveillance Centre 153WA shows that a total of 157,499 reports (46 per cent) were received from 191 National Health Service laboratories in 2001 and 180,503 reports (54 per cent) from 57 Public Health Laboratory Service laboratories. Additionally, CDSC received 137 reports in the same year from 24 laboratories belonging to neither the NHS nor the PHLS.