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Hospital Wards

Volume 460: debated on Friday 18 May 2007

To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many (a) accident and emergency, (b) maternity and (c) paediatric hospital wards (i) closed and (ii) opened in (A) rural and (B) non-rural areas in each year since 1997; and if she will make a statement. (135507)

Information regarding maternity and paediatric hospital wards is not collected in the format requested. National health service trusts self-report the number of accident and emergency (AandE) services they provide against definitions provided by the Department for the three types of AandE on a quarterly basis. The information available for type 1 (major) AandE departments is provided in the following table.

Number of type 1 AandE departments

2001-02

196

2002-03

209

2003-04

208

2004-05

207

2005-06

203

2006-07

204

Notes:

1. QMAE data used for type 1 AandE departments for years 2002-03 to 2006-07.

2. KH03 data used for type 1 A&E departments for year 2001-02.

3. Position is at end March except for 2006-07 where position is at end December 2006.

Source:

QMAE and KH03

Prior to 2000-01, NHS trusts submitted written information on whether or not they provided AandE services. They did not submit a count of the number of services provided. The following table shows information for the number of trusts that said they were providing type 1 (major) AandE services for the period available.

Number of trusts reporting type 1 (major) AandE services

1996-97

205

1997-98

202

1998-99

194

1999-2000

186

2000-01

179

Note:

Position is at end March.

Source:

Department of Health KH03 dataset