To ask Her Majesty’s Government what estimate they have made of the number of people injured as a result of the recent bad weather; and what has been the cost to the National Health Service of treating those people.

The NHS is well versed in dealing with operational challenges such as adverse weather, and these are factored into local contingency plans, including the cost of treating patients. It appears that the system has held up in recent times. We have not made any estimate of the number of people injured as a result of the recent bad weather as this is a matter for the local NHS, and it is too soon. However, provisional hospital admissions data for autumn and winter 2009-10 will be available from the NHS information centre in spring 2010.

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for that Answer and fully understand why all the figures are not available. Does she agree, however, that it is almost certain that the number of people injured during the recent cold weather through slipping on snow and ice represents a much greater cost to the health service than the grit and salt that would have prevented those accidents? While I am not in any way criticising local authorities, which were faced with a sudden and unexpected winter, would it not be better in future for the Government to encourage local authorities to look at this in the round and say that more salt and grit stored in case of need would save a lot of injuries and a lot of pain and distress to people?

My noble friend will know that the recent cold weather was the most prolonged spell of freezing conditions across the UK for 29 years so, not surprisingly, all public services, including hospitals and care services, were put under pressure. I note from the Statement made by my noble friend the Secretary of State for Transport that the challenge that was faced in relation to grit and salt was actually about demand outstripping supply, rather than whether PCTs had given extra support to the local authorities to increase gritting.

My noble friend will be pleased to hear that we are working with the Local Government Association to understand the impact of gritting patterns. We are looking at where people had their accidents—which parks, pavements, corners and car parks—because that is the most sensible way of working out where we need to spread grit and salt in the future.

Is the Minister aware that you are much more likely to have a fracture if your bones are thinned by osteoporosis? Therefore, is it not important to encourage the diagnosis and prevention of osteoporosis? That would greatly reduce the cost to our health service of fractures.

The noble Baroness makes an important point about a difficult condition that affects older people, particularly women.

My Lords, I confess that I am somewhat disappointed at the Minister’s replies so far because I expected a Bill for the abolition of bad weather in winter in the run-up to the general election. I suppose that there is still time.

Accidents happen during cold weather, but I am more concerned about the excess winter deaths where hypothermia is a main factor. That is still a great concern to me. Why has this problem not improved over the past 10 years? The figures are still roughly the same as 10 years ago. We are still among the worst European countries. Why have the measures introduced by the Government so far not brought down excess winter deaths from hypothermia?

I am not sure that I accept that nothing has changed in terms of people keeping warm and well during winter. Indeed, the name of the campaign that we launched in September was “Keep Warm Keep Well”. I point out that this Government have increased the allowance for winter weather. We have had a campaign aimed at financially disadvantaged older people, disabled people, their carers and families with young children on low incomes to give them the information that they need and advice about eating and exercise—because it is not just about keeping warm—home heating, energy efficiency and the details of grants and benefits available. It is a very important campaign, which will have helped this winter.

My Lords, so much pressure was put on to A&E departments. Did they not have to call in extra doctors and nurses? Also, how much pressure was put on the ambulance service?

Undoubtedly, a great deal of pressure was put on all the public services, ambulances and hospitals. My original Answer made the point that we plan for this. I pay tribute to the staff in the health service for how they dealt with this, how they coped and how they ensured patients continued to receive care. Nurses walked miles to get to work because of the transport difficulties. Staff slept in hospitals to ensure that they could be there for duty the next day. Indeed, this was a great example of British co-operation—different organisations such as the coast-guards, Mountain Rescue and local paramedics helping people in remote areas.

My Lords, does the noble Baroness agree that we would avoid these unexpected cost increases in future if we prepared for global cooling rather than global warming?

I will leave that to my noble friend who will answer a Question about just such a matter in two Questions’ time.

What can the Government do to encourage NHS trusts to employ specialist fracture-liaison nurses? The 24 per cent of trusts that have these specialist nurses have demonstrated that the prevention of treatments and services that they provide can be very effective, including cost-effective.

The noble Baroness is absolutely right that these nurses provide a very important contribution to the rapid recovery of people with fractures. We would like them to be more widely used across the National Health Service.

My Lords, is the Minister aware of the case in Northampton where an elderly couple died in their home despite calls to the social services and, I understand, to their general practitioner? Does that not suggest that there is something wrong with the PCTs and their attentiveness to situations such as hypothermia that arise at these particularly difficult times?

The noble Lord points to something that was indeed a great tragedy and which is being looked at right now. It is safe to say that these are very rare occurrences. By and large, people’s neighbours, friends, families and the care services have put great effort into making sure that people, particularly those alone and vulnerable, are kept safe at such times.