To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many citizens’ juries his Department has held since 1 July 2007; what the cost was of each; what issues were discussed at each event; and how many (a) Ministers and (b) members of the public attended each event. (227482)

Since July 2007, the Department has run two day-long sets of deliberative events, or citizens’ juries, in nine strategic health authority (SHA) areas as part of the engagement programme of the NHS Next Stage Review. The purpose of the events was to hear the views of staff, patients and stakeholders to feed into the review.

With regard to the first event on 18 September 2007, I refer the right hon. Member to the written answer given to her on 30 October 2007, Official Report, column 1219W. Summaries of the discussions and those who attended are available on the review’s website at:

http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/Publications/PublicationsPolicy AndGuidance/DH_086529

The second day of deliberative events in the nine SHA regions was held on 24 January 2008 and comprised of a total of 999 people, of which, two thirds of the participants in each region were patients and public, with one third staff. The total cost of these events was £1,014,506.76.

Lead clinicians in each SHA gave an overview of the key points in Lord Darzi’s interim report and also presented a summary of some of the emerging findings of their local work on the clinical pathways. The day was composed of a mix of table discussions, presentations and films for information, plus electronic polling on key questions on the pathways.

The findings from the second day of events also fed into the Engagement Analysis report, a copy of which has been placed in the Library.