Written question asked by Stephen O'Brien (Conservative) on Wednesday, 10 March 2010, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Friday, 12 March 2010. It was answered by Mike O'Brien (Labour) on Tuesday, 16 March 2010 on behalf of the Department of Health.

Medical Records: Publicity

Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how much his Department had spent on leafleting campaigns relating to the Summary Care Record in (a) London and (b) England on the latest date for which figures are available.

Answer: Between 1 January and 28 February 2010, 6,754,089 information packs were produced and sent to patients as part of the summary care record (SCR) public information programme, at a total cost of £1,734,450. Of these, 1,113,228 information packs were sent to people in London, at a cost of £285,877, and 5,640,861 were sent to patients in other parts of England, at a cost of £1,448,573.In the period from the start of the early adopter phase of the SCR programme in March 2007, to 31 December 2009, information packs were produced and sent to 2,336,774 patients in England. During this time mailing and postage costs were met by local national health service organisations and information is not held centrally on the costs involved. The unit cost of producing these information packs was 13.59 per pack.A key reason for moving to regional public information programmes from 1 January 2010 was the improved value for money achieved by producing and distributing materials on a larger scale.

Secondary information