Costs of FOI and PR

Computer Weekly blog post about this request http://www.computerweekly.com/blogs/tony...

I have marked that I've received 'all' the information but I am highly dubious about the way the Dept of Health is doing its accounting on this matter. I queried how it is that a £74million stop smoking campaign was left off the list. Their response:

"The £74million figure referred to in the article you mention relates to NHS stop smoking services. These services are run at hospitals, prisons, pharmacies, military bases, dental practices and other facilities and the £74million figure reflects total spending on all stop smoking services, such as nicotine replacement therapy, telephone support and drop-in clinics. While it is possible that these figures may include local NHS spending on communications relating to stop smoking services, they largely reflect the provision of health services, not communications campaigns as you have inferred."

I can only assume there must be many other out-sourced 'campaigns' which include hefty marketing costs that are conveniently placed off the DoH accounting books.

In addition, by making this request I discovered that the DoH is only half the story. The DoH and NHS are classed by the govt as separate bodies: "the Department allocates funding to the NHS, but decisions on spending are then made locally. Revenue allocations are made to Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) on the basis of the relative needs of their populations."

The DoH then tells me helpfully that if I would like to obtain information about local healthcare spending, I would need to contact the many hundred PCTs that exist.

All a cunning way of keeping secret from the public the full costs spent on PR and marketing on various so-called public health campaigns.

You may be interested in looking at the responses to the Parliamenary Health Select Committee Report into Patient Safety, published recently on Hansard,there are serious failures in health regulation.
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa...

Thanks for previous note from Speers.
So while the dept of health tells the public it has just 54 comms staff, it tells the Lords Select Committee it has 122. Interesting.

Department of Health
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa...

"DoH has 122 staff engaged in communications work, of whom 30 are press officers. The total budget for the communications division of DoH in 2007/08 was £52.2 million. This was made up of an administrative budget of £7.1 million covering the cost of the 122 staff and their day-to-day operations, and £45.1 million of programme costs.

In 2008/09 the total budget allocation rose to £107 million. The administrative budget rose by 7 per cent to £7.6 million, while the programme costs more than doubled to £99.6 million. The main reasons for the large increase in the programme costs were the launch of a major campaign on obesity and a significant increase in expenditure on tobacco control."

How much is spent on severe mental illness, and on the carers of this group of people? How does the cost of keeping such patients incare(hospital or other) with them being kept at home?

Thanks Alix I have asked the question and some interesting links below:
"I am concerned that after much research and after reading the responses to the Parliamentary Health Select Committee report on Patient Safety, that it appears funding for mental health care is taking a disproportionate cut in public funding. Suicide Indicators are being withdrawn from 2010 and England will therefore be left without a National Suicide Prevention Policy. Suicide clusters are ,according to the Dept of Health, possible indicators of 'significant system failure' and if the indicators are withdrawn then how will DH guidance HSG(94)27 be accessed? http://www.dh.gov.uk/prod_consum_dh/grou...

Can I please have updated information on current spending and proposed spending.
1) How much is spent on severe mental illness?
2) How much is spent on the carers of this group of people? 3) How does the cost of keeping such patients incare(hospital or other) compare with them being kept at home?

Interesting take on complaints:
http://www.nursingtimes.net/nursing-prac...

and interesting comments on commissioning from the NHS CEO:
http://www.dh.gov.uk/prod_consum_dh/grou...

Eleanor Laing MP asked how many FOI officers the Department of Health has, and how much the department spends responding to FOI requests via a written question in parliament:

http://www.theyworkforyou.com/wrans/?id=...

The response she got was less accurate, and less complete, than the response obtained from this correspondence thread via WhatDoTheyKnow.

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Richard Taylor
Cambridge
http://www.rtaylor.co.uk