asked the Secretary of State for Social Services how many cases were dealt with in National Health Service hospital accident and emergency units, and how many were dealt with in out-patients clinics in the last year for which figures are available.

In 1978 there were 9,137,000 new out-patients and 13,300,000 total attendances at accident and emergency departments of National Health Service hospitals in England. In the same year over 7,676,000 new out-patients attended hospital out-patient departments and there was a total of 33,700,000 outpatient attendances.