Asked by: Liam Byrne (Labour - Birmingham, Hodge Hill)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many medical negligence cases with a value of damages less than £25,000 there have been in each of the last five years in which (a) costs exceeded damages and (b) costs were challenged.
Answered by Ben Gummer
The question has been interpreted that by medical negligence they mean clinical negligence. The Department does not hold the requested data; it has been sourced from the NHS Litigation Authority (NHS LA).
The table below shows the number of clinical negligence claims closed in each of the last five years with a value of damages less than £25,000 in which costs exceeded damages.
Year of Closure | Total Number Clinical Negligence Claims |
2010/11 | 1,588 |
2011/12 | 1,785 |
2012/13 | 1,925 |
2013/14 | 2,185 |
2014/15 | 2,417 |
Source: NHS LA
Date: 13 January 2016
In all cases claimant costs were challenged.
Asked by: Liam Byrne (Labour - Birmingham, Hodge Hill)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, when his Department plans to publish its low-risk drinking guidelines.
Answered by Jane Ellison
The Chief Medical Officer (CMO) is overseeing a United Kingdom-wide review of all alcohol guidelines so that people can make informed choices about their drinking at all stages of their lives.
The Guidelines Development Group, a group of independent experts, was tasked with developing the lower-risk drinking guidelines for the UK CMOs to consider. The group have researched and developed a proposal on the guidelines. We will be consulting on these shortly.
Asked by: Liam Byrne (Labour - Birmingham, Hodge Hill)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to the Answer of 19 October 2015 to Question 10693, what the rate of hospital admissions where the main reason for admission was alcohol-related was in each local authority area in (a) 2013-14, (b) 2012-13 and (c) 2011-12.
Answered by Jane Ellison
Alcohol-related hospital admissions for all local authorities are available via the Local Alcohol Profile for England (LAPE) tool at:
http://fingertips.phe.org.uk/profile/local-alcohol-profiles
The tool holds annual data from 2008/09 to 2013/14.
Asked by: Liam Byrne (Labour - Birmingham, Hodge Hill)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if he will publish his Department's estimate of the average length of time a person waits between referral for and commencement of alcohol treatment services.
Answered by Jane Ellison
Data is not collected in the format requested, however data from the National Drug Treatment Monitoring System shows that of the 83,771 people receiving a first alcohol treatment intervention in 2013-14, 77,629 (93%) started within three weeks of referral. It should be noted that some people will receive more than one intervention at the same appointment, so the number of first interventions is somewhat higher than the number of referrals for the same year.
Asked by: Liam Byrne (Labour - Birmingham, Hodge Hill)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what the total number of referrals for alcohol treatment services was in each of the last five years for which data is available.
Answered by Jane Ellison
Data on the number of referrals to alcohol treatment is not available.
Asked by: Liam Byrne (Labour - Birmingham, Hodge Hill)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what the total forecast spending on alcohol treatment services is for the future years for which information is available.
Answered by Jane Ellison
Figures for the 2016-17 and future public health grants will not be known until after the 2015 spending review. There is currently a consultation on the proposed target allocation formula for the 2016-17 public health grant, which includes a formula for substance misuse services, which closes on 6 November.
Asked by: Liam Byrne (Labour - Birmingham, Hodge Hill)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what the total spending on alcohol treatment services was in England in each of the last five years for which data is available.
Answered by Jane Ellison
Local authorities are responsible for assessing local need for alcohol treatment and commissioning services and interventions to meet that need, using the public health grant.
The Department of Communities and Local Government publishes statistics on local authority expenditure. The most recent year for which final data is available is 2013-14, and the statistics show that local authorities in England spent £190.4 million on alcohol misuse for adults. This figure includes spending on both alcohol harm prevention and treatment, and is not broken down between the two. Similarly, local authorities spent £70.8 million on substance misuse youth services (for under-18s), but it is not possible to break down how much of this spending went on alcohol or drugs prevention or treatment.
Figures on spending on alcohol treatment before the public health grant came into effect in 2013 are not available centrally.
Asked by: Liam Byrne (Labour - Birmingham, Hodge Hill)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, when the consultation on the Public Health Outcomes Framework 2016-17 will begin.
Answered by Jane Ellison
The consultation on updating the Public Health Outcomes Framework was published on 3 September and closed on 2 October. We are considering the responses and intend to publish our proposals in due course.
Asked by: Liam Byrne (Labour - Birmingham, Hodge Hill)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what estimate he has made of the number of children who are the children of alcoholics.
Answered by Jane Ellison
The main source for estimates of children of alcohol-misusing parents comes from a 2009 research paper which provided new estimates of the number of children (under 16 years) of substance misusing parents. The report found:
- 6% living with a dependent drinker (over 700,000 children);
- Around 26,000 babies under the age of one in England living with a parent who would be classified as a ‘dependent’ drinker.
Asked by: Liam Byrne (Labour - Birmingham, Hodge Hill)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what estimate he has made of the cost to the UK of alcoholism.
Answered by Jane Ellison
We do not have reliable estimates of the specific cost of alcoholism but the estimated cost of broader alcohol-related harms to society is £21 billion.
The £21 billion figure is from a 2012 estimate, which formed part of the Department’s written evidence to the Health Select Committee on 19 July 2012.