HC Deb 01 July 1953 vol 517 cc549-58

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Major Conant.]

11.16 p.m.

Mr. Frederick Peart (Workington)

I wish tonight to concentrate on a matter which affects very much the area of West Cumberland. West Cumberland is a Development Area and before the war was a distressed area, with a very high incidence of unemployment. It also had a very inadequate hospital service. Tonight, I want to draw attention to the needs of the area and, through this Adjournment debate, to extract a promise from the hon. Lady the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health that the needs of West Cumberland will be looked at again by the Minister and that he will give it a measure of priority.

First, I point out that the services are inadequate, as can be revealed by statistics. The figure for hospital beds for West Cumberland is 2.1 per 1,000 of the population, whereas for the whole of the hospital region, which covers the whole North-East and this Northwestern part of England, the figure is 5.6 per 1,000 and the national average is 6.7 beds. I am sure that the Parliamentary Secretary will agree that the figures for West Cumberland are startling and indicate that the services are utterly inadequate.

A survey in 1944 of the North-Western area, which includes West Cumberland, revealed that the beds in that area are sub-standard. That means that only the acutely sick are accommodated in hospitals and patients have to leave the hospitals much too early. This has an effect on the general position. It imposes a terrific strain on hospital staffs of the area and a very heavy burden on management committees in the region. We all pay tribute—I am sure that the Minister of Health would—to the admirable work done by the hospital staffs and management committees in the area.

In my constituency, at Workington Infirmary there has been an attempt to improvise since the National Health Scheme came into operation and there has been a general attempt to remove some of the difficulties which can be seen from the figures I have quoted. Apart from these difficulties it, should also be remembered that the people of West Cumberland sometimes have to travel long distances to secure specialist treatment. Sometimes they have to travel to Carlisle, Manchester, Newcastle and even to Edinburgh. The specialist services as yet have not been sufficiently built up to provide that full service.

More than that, we have an industrial population, and, naturally, in a mining and steel community, and also in a community which is now supported by growing light industries, there is the whole question of accidents and orthopaedic cases which sometimes develop very much in industrial areas. Moreover, because of the increased population which we now have in the Development Areas, with men and women coming back to a former distressed area, the hospital services as such are completely inadequate.

What has been done? A regional board was set up. Its first act was to have a resident consultant service in the area and to improve the hospital facilities by developing Workington Infirmary. I have mentioned how, through improvisation, much accommodation has been increased, the services in the out-patient departments, for example, have greatly improved, and there is a general improvement all round. Secondly, they sought to acquire accommodation and to build a new hospital on a site at Whitehaven. I am not going into the history of that because I am sure that the Parliamentary Secretary will know the pre-war history when a site was acquired by the Whitehaven Hospital Management Committee.

The Cumberland County Council offered a grant. This was also supported by an offer from the Whitehaven Corporation. Indeed, the Special Area Commissioners at that time promised £90,000 towards building costs of this new hospital. The war came. The scheme was thrown over, but later, after the war, it was revived by the regional board. The board hoped that there would be a new scheme and that in the first part of that scheme there would be, above all, the building of a tuberculosis block. Since then that scheme has been thrown over.

When the regional board heard that the scheme itself was to be delayed, it was decided because of the tuberculosis position, to adapt the hospital at Camerton. The Parliamentary Secretary knows that I have raised this matter on the Floor of the House with the Minister himself. Camerton Hospital was once a smallpox hospital, which became the property of the Cumberland County Council. During the war it was used to accommodate Civil Defence stores, and, later, stores for the school meals service.

In May, 1947, the Special Area Committee in West Cumberland approved the taking over of Camerton Hospital as a hospital for tuberculosis, and it was hoped that this hospital with adaptations would provide 80 beds for the area and that in the first stage at least we would have quickly 22 beds. What has happened? For defence purposes the Admiralty raised an objection, and the Minister has abandoned that scheme.

Personally, I think it is a tragedy. Literally thousands of pounds of good public money were spent in improving the hospital at Camerton, and altering fitments to provide an essential sanatorium for tuberculosis patients. The abandonment of that scheme focuses attention on the needs of West Cumberland. We are now hoping that the Minister will allow the West Cumberland Hospital Management Committee and the regional board to proceed with the scheme for new hospital accommodation. The failure to use Camerton means that we must now have new accommodation to meet a very urgent situation.

The local committee had a scheme to rehabilitate the Whitehaven Hospital, and money has been spent on improving the engineering side of that hospital. The regional board put forward a scheme to acquire extra beds by taking over the house "Oak Lea." That was refused by the Ministry. They later put up a scheme to take over two more houses. Again the Minister would not sanction it. Because of the fact that they have had to revise the original pre-war scheme; because the Camerton scheme has been held up for reasons that have been given, and because the new, modified schemes suggested in the Whitehaven area—to acquire houses to improve hospital accommodation—have been rejected, I hope that the Minister will look at this question again. We require two important developments in the area: first, a speedy development of hospital accommodation at Workington Infirmary; and, secondly, a new hospital at Whitehaven.

The Minister has received a resolution from the West Cumberland Hospital Management Committee. That resolution stresses three main points. First, the failure of the Ministry to give approval for any work to be carried out in connection with the proposed new West Cumberland Hospital; secondly, the refusal of permission to acquire "Oak Lea"—in the Whitehaven part of the area—and then Sorbie and Gorlieston; and thirdly, the postponement, because of the drastic reduction in capital funds, of the scheme for the development of Workington Infirmary to about 150 beds. This scheme, as the Minister well knows, had been initiated only shortly after the appointed day.

The Ministry have had this resolution, and on 5th June this year the local committee had an official reply from the Minister of Health. We have had the usual ministerial reply. In a letter from the Ministry the Minister states that he fully recognises the urgent need to increase the area's hospital resources and very much regrets that he is not in a position to offer a hope that this will be possible, on a large scale, in the immediate future. Then the Minister gives further reasons why no new building can be started in West Cumberland—not this year, but in 1954 and 1955.

I am glad that the Minister regrets the abandonment of the Camerton proposal—as stated in the official letter of 5th June—but I beg the Parliamentary Secretary to recognise that the problem is really acute in West Cumberland. I am not overstating the case. I have quoted the resolution of the local management committee, which focuses atten- tion on the needs of the area. I know that the 5th June letter seems to give the impression that the Minister has finally decided that nothing can be done, but in view of the fact that the Camerton scheme has been abandoned and the hospital bed accommodation in this part of the Newcastle region is the worst in the whole regional area and much below the national average, there is a strong case for some special action.

If the Minister is not disposed to give a favourable reply tonight I hope she will convey to her right hon. Friend the fact that we feel strongly on this matter. Perhaps the Minister will be prepared to look at it again. I would invite the Minister, or the Parliamentary Secretary, to come to West Cumberland to examine the situation there. I agree that much has been done. I have already stressed the magnificent work of the staffs, and the difficulty of the work of the various hospital management committees who have improvised here and there. But we feel that something should be done, and I beg the hon. Lady to give me a favourable reply; or, if not, at least to promise that she will convey to her right hon. Friend the Minister the urgency of the position in West Cumberland.

11.31 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health (Miss Patricia Hornsby-Smith)

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman the Member for Workington (Mr. Peart) for the restraint with which he has put forward an extremely difficult problem tonight, and I do not hesitate to say that the situation in the area to which he refers is extremely difficult. At the outset, I would endorse fully what he has said about the magnificent work of the staffs in the limited accommodation there, and I agree with everything he says about the efforts made to deal with the situation.

May I again emphasise, however, that the money is allocated to the regional hospital boards. The regions, knowing particular localities, have themselves to decide their priorities within the allocations made, and it would be quite wrong if we, at the Ministry, kept vast sums back so that we might dispense them, perhaps through pressure by hon. Members in this House, without the local knowledge. That would nullify the responsible work of the regional boards. The fact is that we have not sums of money tucked away from which we can make the special allocations for which he most eloquently pleads.

So far as the hon. Gentleman's figures are concerned, it is true that the West Cumberland Hospital Management Committee has only 259 general beds between Whitehaven and Workington and two small hospitals at Maryport and Cocker-mouth, but the Newcastle Regional Board regard the West Cumberland area as one of its first priorities. I agree with him that it has not been possible to go forward with the project for the Whitehaven Hospital which is a large project. That would take considerable capital moneys, which are not available in our present economic circumstances. So far as Camerton is concerned, I regret as much as he the difficulties which have arisen, but he is less than just in inferring that all blame lies with the Minister.

Mr. Peart

I never said that. I pleaded with the Minister to hold an inquiry on Camerton. I know local reasons why this scheme went forward and how, later, there were objections by the Admiralty. I did not lay the blame on the Minister; I wanted an inquiry. I will lay the blame on the Minister for not having an inquiry.

Miss Hornsby-Smith

The issue regarding Camerton is that there was a derelict smallpox hospital and the premises were not transferred as such to the National Health Service in 1948. They were still then outside our jurisdiction. The proposal was made by the county council to sell the premises to the Admiralty in 1947, under Section 165 of the Local Government Act, but, subsequently, the Admiralty abandoned the project. In 1950, the regional hospital board applied to purchase Camerton, in which, it was hoped, to provide 75 or 80 beds for tuberculosis cases.

It was mentioned in the architect's report that there was an ordnance store a quarter of a mile away, but no reference was made—this is where the initial error lies—at that time by the people who must have known—the local planning officers and others concerned with the whole planning and control of the area; it must have been within their knowledge—that the depot was, in fact, an ammunition dump subject to special precautions and special arrangements as a result of which buildings, and certainly a hospital, could not be put within a quarter of a mile range of it.

To cut the long story of Camerton short, when the matter was brought to the attention of my right hon. Friend in November, and it was pointed out to him how impossible it would be to have a hospital for tuberculosis patients, or, indeed, any other patients, within a quarter of a mile of an established ammunition dump, he very rapidly made his decision. In a matter of a fortnight he had met the appropriate officials in the Departments and had made his decision that the scheme must be dropped. There was no delay on the part of my right hon. Friend when this unfortunate—I agree with the hon. Gentleman that it could not have been more unfortunate—circumstance was brought to his notice. The delay ranges over the three years, during which the project has been under way but does not explain the particular reason, which was not brought to light earlier, why the site chosen was on the very edge of an ammunition dump.

As to the third proposal, that of the purchase of "Oak Lea," at Whitehaven, to provide accommodation for 16 beds, the regional hospital board did not feel that it could justify giving it absolute priority within its programme, as the 16 beds entailed a capital cost of £14,000. Although the hospital management committee suggested that it might make a grant to that sum from non-Exchequer moneys, it was not wholly a matter of the allocation of money by the regional hospital board; it was also a matter of its allocating the materials and labour at its disposal.

As to the two houses at Whitehaven, Sorbie and Gorlieston, here it was hoped to add 15 beds to the hospital, but, as the hon. Member knows, the Cumberland County Council simultaneously applied for permission for them to become an old persons' home, which is an equal need in the area. Negotiations for them to be an old persons' home were well advanced before the hospital management committee made application for the same premises. The decision went in favour of the county council, and the premises were acquired for use as an old persons' home.

The regional hospital board has admitted that the area is one of its first priorities. It is proposing the conversion of a 26 bed convalescent hospital at Ellerbeck into a 34 bed T.B. hospital in view of the immediate and particular shortage of T.B. accommodation in the area. In its programme is also the conversion of Holmwood House to provide 40 T.B. beds at an estimated cost of £30,000.

The board cannot, at present, give a date for the expansion of the Workington Hospital, but it feels that it must try to go ahead with the extension to 150 beds as a priority in its programme and as a project which it views as a necessary part of the programme to provide additional beds in the area. There is a larger project at Whitehaven Hospital which will ultimately provide 300–500 beds. It is suggested that this should start with blocks, making 250 beds, but although this proposal is in the programme it cannot be included in the present capital allocations of the Ministry or the regional hospital board.

In certain circumstances, such as vast new mental homes, these projects are sometimes initially financed by the Ministry because they cover more than one regional board. That has been our priority this year. It is in the Sheffield region that the main capital allocation has been made for the first new hospital project since the National Health Service came into operation and it is in this area that a mental hospital is a crying need and a matter of great priority. I very much regret that it is not possible to give a date at present of when it will be possible to start this hospital. It is still in the programme of the regional board.

The Minister has gone into this problem in very great detail and has considered the difficulties of this area, and we are certainly not unsympathetic to the peculiar difficulties of the region; but it would be wrong for us to override in any way the regional hospital board, who are alive to the problem and who, I am confident, will devote as much of their resources as possible in the coming years to making up the leeway which it is acknowledged must be made up to bring this area up to the general standard of the region.

I am sure that they will consider any proposals, large or small, which are put before them, which they genuinely feel can be given priority within their capital allocation, but the overall economic situation and the capital allocation at our disposal, and the allocation passed from us to the region, does not permit of the introduction this year or next year of the capital programmes which have been outlined by the region as the programmes which they hope ultimately to conclude. In as far as priority can be given to this area, it is being given. It is not a case in which the Minister can make a special allocation to the regional board but of the regional board deciding where the priorities lie within their area and allocating the money at their disposal to those projects.

I thank the hon. Member, again, for the restraint with which he has raised this matter and I assure him that we admit the difficulties, that we have taken the matter up with the region and that we have no doubt that the region regard the hospital management committee area as one which must have priority in order to bring it up to the standard of the rest of the region. I hope that he will feel assured that the problems of his area are not suffering from any lack of sympathetic and fair consideration.

Adjourned accordingly at Eighteen Minutes to Twelve o'Clock.