§ Mr. Norman:To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many NHS staff, employed within the central function, are employed in (a) personnel, (b) finance, (c) information technology, (d) legal services, (e) library services, in health education and (g) general management support services. [141917]
§ Mr. Hutton:The information requested is not collected centrally. As at 30 September 2002, 85,706 people were employed in the National Health Service in central functions within the NHS infrastructure support staff group.
§ Mr. Jenkins:To ask the Secretary of State for Health what the timescale is for the introduction of a national incident reporting system for recording physical assaults on NHS staff. [141812]
§ Mr. Hutton:The Counter Fraud and Security Management Service (CFSMS) was launched in April 2003 with a remit encompassing policy and operational responsibility for the management of security in the national health service. The CFSMS has developed a national reporting system for recording incidents of 780W physical assault. The system uses a legally based definition with the ability to track cases from report to conclusion and is designed to give hard and accurate information on both the nature and scale of assaults.
Secretary of State Directions were issued to health bodies in November 2003 to ensure that a consistent approach is taken with regards to the recording of physical and non-physical assaults. The national recording system for physical assaults came into operation on 8 December 2003.