asked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will make a statement on the health services administered by the Cleveland Area Health Authority, and list in the Official Report the present staffing and establishment requirements, respectively, for the hospitals and medical centres in the area in the employment classification of consultants, junior hospital doctors, nurses, and ancillary staffs; and if he will refer to the authority's financial needs and its present financial support.

The present staffing and establishment requirements for the hospital and medical centres administered by Cleveland Area Health Authority are as follows:

		Staff in post	Funded establishment
Consultants	…	140	141
Junior Hospital Doctors	…	201	219
Nurses in hospitals	…	3,400	3,413
Nurses in the community (excluding family planning services)	…	388	396
Ancillary Staff	…	2,063	2,128

Regional health authorities were asked to be guided in the their approach to revenue allocation in the current year by the principles and methods adopted by the Resource Allocation Working Party in its first interim report. This entails establishing a "notional resource target" reflecting the needs of each area. An allocation of £34,141,000 was made to Cleveland Area Health Authority for 1976–77, which included a share of betterment funds. The second report of the Resource Allocation Working Party has since been received, which recommends more refined methods of establishing targets, and this will be taken into account by the regional health authority before allocations are made for 1977–78 and later years.