§ Mr. Burstow
To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many health care assistants work in the NHS; and if he will list the titles they work under in(a) England, (b) each region and (c) each NHS trust. 
§ Mr. Hutton
As at September 2002, there were 210,462 healthcare assistants employed in the national health service according to the non-medical workforce census. Healthcare assistants perform a similar role as other groups in the NHS, including nursing auxiliaries and assistants to qualified scientific, therapeutic and technical staff. These staff are included in the above figure and also the Performance and Planning Framework target for 27,000 more healthcare assistants by 2005 over a 2002 baseline.
Job titles of staff within NHS organisations are determined at a local level and are not collated centrally.
Details of the number of healthcare assistants by primary care trusts have been placed in the Library.856W