asked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will list in the Official Report for each health region the number of spinal units in that region, the number of beds in each unit and the total population covered by each region; and, where a region has no spinal unit, what arrangements are made for spinal patients.
Spinal units provide a supra-regional service and they have no specific catchment area: it is not therefore possible to enumerate the total populations they serve. Arrangements for transferring individual patients to a spinal unit are the responsibility of the doctor concerned.
Units are at:
| No. of beds | |
| Hexham | 20 |
| Lodge Moor, Sheffield | 64 |
| Oswestry | 50 |
| Stoke Mandeville | 156* |
| Wakefield | 24† |
| Southport | 38 |
* 36 beds are temporarily out of use. | |
| † Work is in hand to increase the number of beds to 36. | |
The provision of spinal units in the North is generally adequate. It is at present insufficient in the South but the position will improve when the Stanmore—North-West Thames and Odstock—Wessex—units come into operation.