asked the Secretary of State for Social Services (1) what is the required standard of psychiatric departments before they are recognised by the Royal College of Psychiatry;(2) what action she intends to take to ensure that the psychiatric services in Bury and Radcliffe achieve the stan-

The Royal College of Psychiatrists is responsible for the approval of training programmes and for the criteria for approval of individual posts for the training of doctors for membership of the college. The Joint Committee on Higher Psychiatric Training is concerned with higher specialist training for doctors who have already obtained membership of the college and who for example may later wish to apply for consultant posts in the National Health Service. Visiting teams from the college or from the joint committee examine the services associated with a post and the facilities which are provided for training. They consider whether a post can be approved for training and their reports are normally made available to the appropriate health authority who would no doubt inform me of any matters of which they considered I should be aware.