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 |
The approximate value of commissions for research into meningitis and related illnesses placed directly by the Department since 1978–79 is:
1986–87
| 1987–88
|
| £49,000 | £17,400 |
This work mainly relates to support for the Gloucester health authority's meningococcal survey in the Stonehouse area.
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 | |||||
1 International Classification of Diseases 8th and 9th revisions.
2 Provisional—The 1987 figure for the number of notifications of acute and meningococcal meningitis is provisional as it is based on the notifications reported to OPCS each week. It does not include all late or corrected notifications, and is therefore liable to a small change at a later date.
The annual figures for deaths should be compared with caution as