To ask the Secretary of State for Health what the evidential basis is for the statement on page 15 of his Department’s NHS Next Stage Review: Interim Report, published on 4 October 2007, that 56 per cent. of hospital inpatients did not have the opportunity to speak to a doctor. (158475)

The figure of 56 per cent. was derived from the Healthcare Commission’s 2006-07 National Patient Survey of Adult Inpatients. It refers to the proportion of patients who said that their family, or someone who cared for them, did not always have enough opportunity to talk to a doctor.