HC Deb 25 July 1960 vol 627 cc1077-80
41. Mr. R. Carr

asked the Minister of Labour whether he will make a statement about the development of industrial health services.

Mr. Heath

I have been considering with my Industrial Health Advisory Committee how best to develop industrial health services.

Legal requirements safeguarding the health of industrial workers are contained in the Factories Acts and regulations. These are constantly revised and extended.

In addition, many firms voluntarily provide medical and nursing services. To encourage more employers to do this, I am publishing later this year a booklet about some of these services, giving details of their cost together with the views of management and workpeople about them.

As well as such services provided by individual firms, group schemes have operated successfully in a few places with special circumstances, such as Slough and Harlow. We now need to explore the possibilities of establishing group schemes in areas of a different kind.

Another need is for the fuller use and development of industrial hygiene services to carry out chemical, physical and biological tests where special hazards exist or are suspected. I hope that awareness of this need will be stimulated by the booklet I have published recently on Toxic Substances in Factory Atmospheres. I am arranging to set up an organisation to collect information about existing facilities regularly and to make it available to employers.

I have discussed further action with the Nuffield Foundation which has had considerable experience in promoting industrial health schemes. I am happy to say that the Trustees of the Foundation have decided to allocate the sum of £250,000 for the further development of group industrial health services and industrial hygiene services. The money will be applied to assist practical schemes which promise to be self-supporting after an initial period of development. In the selection of such schemes, the Foundation will work in the closest co-operation with my Department.

I am most grateful—as I am sure we all are—for this further example of the interest and generosity of the Nuffield Foundation in this field.

Mr. Carr

This new impetus is most welcome. May I ask my right hon. Friend what sort of schemes he has in mind for using this Nuffield grant and what sort of organisation he is thinking of setting up for collecting information about industrial hygiene?

Mr. Heath

The organisation which we shall set up to collect and collate information about the facilities for Chemicals, physical and biological testing will be within my Department itself, but it will have the help and advice of the sub-committee of the Industrial Health Advisory Committee.

Concerning the sort of things we have in mind for the use of the £250,000, so far the group schemes have operated in the newer areas and in areas where factories are grouped together—for example, in Slough and Harlow. There have been other experiments, but they have been the main ones. We hope to apply same of this to the older areas, and where factories are more scattered and there are various difficulties still to be overcome.

Mr. Prentice

The right hon. Gentleman has referred several times to group schemes. How many of them are there covering smaller firms? Am I right in thinking that they cover only a very small proportion of industry? Is there any hope that they will spread over the greater part of British industry, particularly small firms, unless the Government take a hand in organising an occupational health service throughout the country which is badly needed, would pay for itself many times over, particularly in the hours of work likely to be saved, and would be a great humanitarian service?

Mr. Heath

It is true that a very large number of the larger and middle-sized firms run their own schemes. The number of group schemes at present in operation is small, but it can be shown that they work effectively in the areas I have described. Now we want to go ahead over a wider field to show that they can operate effectively and thus can spread in the same way as individual firms' schemes have spread.

Mr. Marsh

Quite apart from the social aspect of this problem, are there not good economic reasons why the Government should take over responsibility of providing a Government-sponsored health service rather than relying upon exhortation to private industry?

Mr. Heath

I know that one school of thought would like to have a completely nationalised industrial health service running parallel to the existing National Health Service. I take the view that this is a better way of approaching this problem.