FUTURE OF HEALTH SURVEYS

That this House notes with concern the withdrawal of some 50,000 of funding by the Department of Health for the health element of the annual British Social Attitudes Survey, as reported in the British Medical Journal on 29 March 2011; recognises the British Social Attitudes Survey, conducted by the National Centre for Social Research, as a valuable snapshot of the public's attitudes and an important resource for information relating to policy across a range of social issues dating back to 1983 and covering a large polling sample; understands that the future of funding for the health-specific element of the General Lifestyle Survey, carried out by the Office for National Statistics, is the subject of discussions between the Department of Health and the Health and Social Care Information Centre; further notes that this survey has been running almost continuously since 1971; agrees with the Chairman of the UK Statistics Authority that the planned changes to the NHS make it particularly important to continue to collect statistics over time in order to gain a rational view of the impact of such changes; and calls on the Government to acknowledge the importance of the data collected in the British Social Attitudes Survey, the General Lifestyle Survey and the Ipsos MORIPublic Perceptionsof the NHS and Social Care Survey by continuing to fund the collection and dissemination of these authoritative insights into public practices, perceptions andpriorities.