asked the Secretary of State for Social Services (1) what discussions have been held with the Peterborough Development Corporation following the dispersal programme review by the Secretary of State for the Environment to consider health needs afresh and to determine the future pattern of primary and secondary health services in the Peterborough health district;(2) whether he can now respond to the need for additional capital resources in the East Anglian Region to take special account of the exceptional population growth in Peterborough health district to which the annual report of the Peterborough Development Corporation for 1976–77 (H.C. 539) refers.

The area health authority has made a study of the health needs of the population of the Peterborough Health District, in consultation with Peterborough Development Corporation and will be reviewing its conclusions in the light of new assumptions available to the development corporation. Officers of the regional and area health authorities are in close touch with officers of the development corporation about possible sites for a second district general hospital in Peterborough. It is expected that the regional health authority will consider early in the new year a programme for deployment of capital resources available to them in the coming years; capital allocations to regional health authorities take account of the official projections of their future populations. In preparing its programme for the region, the regional health authority will take account of the high priority given by the area health authority to development of health services in Peterborough.