To ask the Secretary of State for Social Services how many members of staff within his Department are located within each region outside London; what percentage this constitutes of staff within his Department; and what were the comparable figures, in absolute and percentage terms in 1979.

Using the boundaries of social security regions departmental staff were located on 1 January 1988 as follows:understand that in the last three financial years, the council's expenditure on research into meningitis and related illnesses has been as follows:

1984–85	1985–86	1986–87
£58,491	£26,956	£144,057

Figures for earlier years are not readily available.The council is to convene a meeting of experts to discuss promising lines for meningitis research which may lead to a specific commission from the Department.Other research in this field funded by the Department has been carried out by the Public Health Laboratory service board at its Manchester laboratory and the Centre for Applied Microbiology and Research, Porton Down. The cost of this cannot be separated from that of other research carried out by these laboratories.

To ask the Secretary of State for Social Services how many cases of meningitis have been reported in the last 10 years; and of these how many were fatal.

Meningitis may be caused by many different organisms. The numbers of notifications of acute meningitis (all forms) and of meningococcal meningitis in England and Wales from 1978 to 1987 are shown in the table. I assume that the hon. Member is interested particularly in meningococcal meningitis, and the table also gives deaths from this cause.From the registration of the death, it is not possible to determine whether the case had been notified.

Number of (a) notifications of Acute Meningitis (all forms) and Meningococcal Meningitis, and (b) Deaths registered with Meningococcal Meningitis (ICD (8,9)1036.0) as underlying cause of death
Persons, all ages	England and Wales 1978–1987
	(a) Notifications		(b) Deaths
Year	Acute meningitis	Meningococcal meningitis	Meningococcal meningitis
1978	1,698	501	42
1979	1,427	525	32
1980	1,796	509	26
1981	1,393	464	28
1982	1,272	410	20
1983	1,226	428	20
1984	1,230	401	26
1985	1,533	550	36
1986	2,172	870	44
21987	2,567	1,090	28

National Health Service activity, England
Year	Discharges and deaths	New out-patient attendances	Total attendances	Number of blood units issued1 2	Total number of pathology tests3
1979	5,400,120	7,713,465	34,099,725	1,705,190	63,042,614
1980	5,670,001	7,942,207	35,242,980	1,793,172	66,098,610
1981	5,759,877	8,024,679	35,571,384	1,836,674	68,685,979
1982	5,719,634	8,096,977	35,651,222	1,784,749	70,897,520
1983	6,018,585	8,310,942	36,519,550	1,829,988	74,506,823
1984	6,177,545	8,508,052	37,042,706	1,873,402	77,270,773
1985	6,353,812	8,682,128	37,440,333	1,843,569	79,569,650
1986	6,413,789	8,767,788	37,727,608	1,861,019	481,535,721
Percentage change over previous year
	per cent.	per cent.	per cent.	per cent.	per cent.
1980	50	3·0	3·4	5·2	4·8
1981	1·6	1·0	0·9	2·4	3·9
1982	-0·7	0·9	0·2	-2·8	3·2
1983	5·2	2·6	2·4	2·5	5·1
1984	2·6	2·4	1·4	2·4	3·7
1985	2·9	2·0	1·1	-1·6	3·0
1986	0·9	1·0	0·8	0·9	2·5
1 Total of whole and concentrated reduced units issued.
2 England immunology and nuclear medicine.
3 Includes immunology and nuclear medicine.
4 Provisional