§ Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. E. Wakefield.]
§ 10.11 p.m.
§ Mr. Roy Mason (Barnsley)My intention this evening is to draw the attention of the Minister to what may be regarded as a purely constituency matter, but what to me is nevertheless very important, namely, the urgent need to build an extension to St. Helen Hospital, Barnsley, as quickly as possible.
I understand that this was first projected in 1956. At that time, the extension was intended to cost £1¾ million, but, because of the delay, I understand that the cost will now be £2 million. To date, there does not appear to have been any progress. Following my many queries on this subject, I have had the tediously repetitive reply that consultations are still taking place. I must inform the Minister that the situation in Barnsley is getting rapidly worse.
I queried the start of this project in March, 1958, again in February, 1959, and then in May, 1959, when I received from the Minister the reply that discussions were still continuing. I asked about people waiting for beds in May, 1959, and I was informed that there were 1,900 people then on the waiting list. When I asked what plans there were to cut back that figure, I was informed that there was a shortage of accommodation which would be relieved when the extension was built.
I remind the House of the statement which the Minister of Health made on 16th November last year. The right hon. and learned Gentleman made a very long and detailed statement about the hospital building programme for the year 1960–61 when it was intended that £31 million would be spent. The statement did not specifically mention St. Helen Hospital, but correspondence which the hon. Lady has had with one of my colleagues specifically states that St. Helen Hospital, Barnsley, is included in the centrally financed programme of major building schemes announced by the Minister on 16th November. I hold the Minister particularly to that statement.
1092 Bringing the picture more up to date, on 4th February this year I again asked how many people in Barnsley and district were waiting for beds and, particularly, awaiting operations. I was given the most disturbing figures. I was told that 2,541 people are now waiting for beds, and 2,417 of them are awaiting operations, an increase in the numbers waiting for beds of 641 in seven months. This is a most alarming situation, and the Minister ought at least to be making some attempt to draw the attention of the Sheffield Regional Hospital Board to this most alarming growth in the number of people waiting for hospital beds.
How does this affect the people of Barnsley and district? To begin with, the constituency is a heavy industrial one, being concerned mainly with coal mining. There are light industries, such as glass, rubber and light engineering, but because of the other heavy industry, coal mining in particular, many industrial workers have been on the waiting list for many months, especially for hernia and cartillage operations.
If only 1,000 out of the figure of 2,417 waiting for operations are miners in need of hernia and cartillage operations—they are highly-skilled, highly-productive operatives from the coal face who have been relegated in status because of their slight injury—we have in respect of that body of men alone lost 300,000 tons of coal per year. Secondly, if those men had been earning at £18 a week at the coalface and are now relegated in status to a non-cost operation somewhere in the district, they will probably be earning an average of £10 a week. Therefore, in respect of those 1,000 men we are immediately losing £8,000 per week in purchasing power, and the trade of the town suffers because of that.
It may also be that some of them, because of the nature of their injuries, are on Industrial Injuries pay, which is another expense and financial burden for the State. In any case, all the 1,000 will be in need of special hardship allowance, which will represent a pouring out of £1,700 per week in respect of the 1,000 men. It seems farcical that in attempting to cut down this growing list of people in need of operations we have to pour out finance in this respect, lose such a tonnage of coal and also cause the trade of the town to suffer.
1093 Above all, 552 of the 2,541 people waiting for beds are having to wait an average of seventeen months before they can be admitted to hospital, and a further 750 are having to wait an average of sixteen months. Also, apart from dentistry, all of us are having to wait at least ten months. Is this not a very grim picture indeed, and one which should cause the Ministry some concern?
I have dealt with the problem of how this affects the manual worker. What about the women? There are 451 women who are awaiting gynaecological operations. They are having to wait at least seventeen months before they can be admitted. The number may be more than 451, because the consultant may have a list of his own. It is possible That patients who think they are in need of an operation will go to a consultant immediately for an examination and he may put them on a private list of his own. Therefore, to begin with, these patients are ripe for exploitation. They all fear a deterioration in their health, and they view with alarm the time they are having to wait. I would remind the Minister that some of these women may have early cancerous conditions.
What prospects have they when they enter the hospital in seventeen months' time? Many of them will be suffering from a prolapse of the womb or fibroids of the womb, suffering much irritation and pain, and yet nothing is being done to alleviate the situation and to cut back this growing waiting list.
What of the children? There are 552 children in the Barnsley district who urgently require operations for tonsils and adenoids, but who have to wait on average seventeen months before they can be admitted to hospital. One parent recently informed me that his doctor had said that his son was in danger of having his hearing impaired if he did not get an operation quickly. This is a situation ripe for exploitation. Parents, fearing that their children's hearing was affected or fearing that their own hearing might be affected because of this long waiting time, go to a specialist, pay a consultant's fees for an operation and use the pay bed in order to get the operation carried out. These people are being forced into a situation in which they pay consultants in order to get into hospital, and this is a very serious situation.
1094 The new extension to the hospital is planned also to take in a chest clinic. I would remind the hon. Lady that many people in Barnsley suffer from pneumoconiosis and silicosis because of the industrial nature of the town through coal mining, and also because there are large estates where raw coal is burnt because many of the tenants have the concessionary coal allowance. We have these conditions which are ripe for the aggravation of respiratory diseases.
Our chest clinic is overwhelmed. It is an old house. The medical superintendent, the doctor who is responsible, is working in terrible conditions. His X-ray equipment, his desk and his filing system are in one room of this old house. This just cannot go on, and we urgently require this extension as well as the chest clinic as soon as possible.
What does the Minister intend to do about this? I understand from questioning him here on 4th February that there are now three plans in existence. I should like to know something about them. How quickly is he making progress? Is it possible to give us a date of commencement, and what is to be the planned expansion in the town itself, particularly regarding the number of beds? How many are we going to gain? Even with the rate of progress which the hon. Lady mentions in this letter under this centrally-financed programme for 1960–61, even if it was started then, it will take until 1964 at least to complete. If we get along at only half the present rate of growth in the waiting list, we shall have five thousand people on the waiting list in Barnsley by 1964—I repeat, even at only half the rate of the present growth.
I think that this situation demands an immediate investigation, either by the Sheffield Regional Hospital Board or indeed by the Ministry itself. It is serious enough for Ministerial intervention. Someone should be sent into Barnsley to examine all the possibilities of using all the ward capacity of the hospitals to the full in order to cut back immediately this waiting list of people requiring operations. We cannot allow this situation to go on any longer.
Finally, I feel so disturbed about this matter, having questioned the Minister on it for two or three years in this House, 1095 and being filled with alarm at the growing waiting list of people urgently in need of beds in Barnsley hospitals, that I tell the hon. Lady, with respect, that I shall continue to harangue and pester and use all possible forms of pressure, both on the Sheffield Regional Hospital Board and herself, until we get these badly needed extensions.
§ 10.25 p.m.
§ The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health (Miss Edith Pitt)The hon. Member for Barnsley (Mr. Mason), as he has twice reminded the House, has been assiduous in following up the case for extra beds in his constituency. I should like to say at once that we know that there is a shortage and that there has been delay, not all of it avoidable, and I am extremely sorry to find that the waiting list in this area is very long. We have been well aware of the deficiencies of the hospital services in Barnsley, and there is a shortage of beds for acute cases, the chronic sick and for maternity cases. It was for this reason that the extension of St. Helen Hospital for acute cases and for maternity cases was one of the first of the major hospital projects to be centrally financed. This was announced, as the hon. Gentleman reminded the House, in December, 1956.
The hon. Gentleman asked me why there was no specific mention of the St. Helen project when my right hon. and learned Friend gave a list to the House in November of other major projects. That was an additional list. It does not mean in the slightest that St. Helen is removed from its first priority of being part of the first list in 1956. There have been subsequent difficulties which I suspect the hon. Gentleman knows as well as I do, but since he has invited me to tell him what the plans are I will go over a little of the back history.
The present position is that acute cases in Barnsley are treated at the St. Helen Hospital and the Beckett Hospital. The proposed scheme is for doubling the size of the 224-bed St. Helen Hospital and concentrating the acute work there, and ultimately to use the 174 beds in Beckett Hospital mainly for the chronic sick. As regards immediate provision for the chronic sick, a tender has just been approved and accepted within the 1096 last two or three weeks for the provision of 90 chronic sick beds at Mount Vernon Hospital at an estimated cost of £250,000. This will relieve the pressure on St. Helen, where acute beds tend to be blocked by patients who otherwise could be transferred to chronic sick beds elsewhere.
Figures of the waiting list are as the hon. Member has given to the House, and I will not take time by repeating them, but I should add that emergencies are dealt with without any delay, and these, I would most certainly except to find, would include any woman with a carcinoma condition, to which the hon. Gentleman referred specifically. The waiting lists and waiting time in Barnsley illustrate the need for more beds. This is why the extension of St. Helens Hospital has been included in the major hospital building programme. Equally, waiting lists and waiting time in neighbouring areas have been the reason for planning new hospital projects in Doncaster and Sheffield. The hon. Gentleman asked me to draw the attention of the Sheffield Regional Hospital Board to the alarming growth of the waiting list. There is no need to do that, because the Board is well aware of it and I believe has been greatly exercised by the waiting lists in Barnsley and has carried out a number of improvements to the existing hospital.
The provision of the chronic sick beds at Mount Vernon will afford some relief, but unfortunately it will not be felt for some time. We might be asked to consider the transfer of patients to other areas, but I believe that in this region that is limited by the other areas, own needs. The Ministry's officers will willingly undertake urgent consultations with the Board, and this answers the final plea of the hon. Gentleman that we should explore every possible means of finding some immediate relief, but in the long run only new building can provide an adequate solution.
When the hon. Gentleman asked in the House a year ago about progress with the scheme, the then Parliamentary Secretary informed him that the time taken since December, 1956, had been due to the size of the project, which was estimated to be around £2 million, and to the need for deciding what existing buildings should be kept, for making site tests and for determining what precise 1097 new accommodation should be provided. The regional board originally proposed the provision of over 500 beds, including maternity beds, but in the general financial circumstances of the time, and in the light of competing needs elsewhere, it was reluctantly decided to limit the new provision to 350 acute beds and 94 maternity beds.
On this basis, the Board prepared schedules of accommodation—the detailed proposals for all the accommodation in the proposed new building, the contents of the ward blocks, operating theatres, out-patients, X-ray, pathological and other ancillary departments, a new boiler house, kitchen and dining rooms. At the same time, in view of the dangers in this area of subsidence, the board commissioned consulting engineers to make trial borings and site tests.
The report of the trial borings, received in March, 1958, indicated old filled-in excavations on the proposed site of the main ward block and necessitated reconsideration of the suggested block plan. In August that year, mining subsidence under the north-west corner of the site was revealed when an operating theatre developed cracks soon after Installation in one of the existing hospital buildings. Consideration of the schedules of accommodation proceeded, however, while the general method of using the site was under consideration and, as the hon. Member has been informed, these have now been settled.
To understand the planning difficulties, we must look back to the 1880s, when the builders of the original institution, who in their time and day knew their job, chose a fine site on rising ground and crowned it with a well-spaced building in a manner worthy of the citizens of Barnsley. The site they chose was the right one. This was partly a general hospital and partly a hospital for the elderly and infirm.
In 1948, it was divided into St. Helen hospital, as it is now known, and The Limes residential home administered by the Barnsley Corporation. In consequence, the regional board have, in effect, had to attempt the erection of a modern hospital on half a site which is crumbling at the edges. The architect commissioned by the regional hospital board for the scheme prepared sketch plans on the basis of the agreed schedule 1098 of accommodation, but reached the conclusion that it was not possible to produce a satisfactory hospital plan within the limitations imposed by the site condition and the position of the existing buildings. The result would be a huddle of new buildings with awkward internal communications at the lower extremities of the site and abutting too closely to the neighbouring houses.
The board was accordingly faced with a decision whether to accept a second-best plan or to face the expense disturbance and delay involved in demolishing and replacing the existing blocks. At that time, two new major factors emerged. First, with the passage of time, the need for additional beds to bring the hospital up to the ultimate size of about 525 beds pressed more strongly. Secondly, it was learned that the Barnsley Corporation was contemplating the replacement of The Limes and the disposal of its site and buildings. If the rest of the original hospital site could be obtained without undue delay and without adding too much to the cost of the project, the worst obstacle to the planning of a satisfactory hospital would be overcome.
The regional hospital board had, in the meantime, discussed with the Ministry three possible plans for the development of the site. One was the retention of the existing hospital buildings indefinitely, the second necessitated the demolition and replacement of the existing buildings and the third would make use of The Limes site. I assure the hon. Member that I have studied the plans. I have brought them with me, and if he likes to spare a few moments after this debate, I will be glad to show them to him. Our comments on each of these plans were conveyed to the board on 2nd February with the general observation that the advantage of using The Limes site warranted the immediate exploration of the possibility of its acquisition. The board is accordingly obtaining a valuation.
We have been deeply concerned at the progress of this scheme in view of the urgency of the need for better hospital service in the area, but these issues have to be faced. The board could proceed with a hospital which could meet the need, and if The Limes does not become available Barnsley can, 1099 and will, have a hospital which will be adequate though not the best in terms of site and layout.
It would be our intention to bring the total beds up to the 525 which, it is agreed, is now the estimated requirement, but much depends on whether we can buy The Limes site and whether the Corporation will be able to rehouse its welfare residents and release the site by the time that the board wants it.
On the other hand, if The Limes site could be obtained without prohibitive 1100 cost and could be released by the Corporation within a reasonable time, the new part of the hospital could be built without disturbing the present one, provision of further beds could follow without undue dislocation and we should be able to provide Barnsley with a twentieth century hospital worthy of its tradition. That is what we want to do.
§ Question put and agreed to.
§ Adjourned accordingly at twenty-five minutes to Eleven o'clock.