HC Deb 12 April 1961 vol 638 cc447-56

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Peel.]

1.42 a.m.

Mr. Bruce Millan (Glasgow, Craigton)

Even at this late hour I am very glad to have the opportunity to raise the question of the repair and maintenance of invalid tricycles in Glasgow. I have already been in correspondence with the Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland about particular cases and about the arrangements generally. I think that he will be familiar with most of the points I shall raise tonight.

My interest in this matter arose out of two cases from constituents and I should like to mention them briefly, although I am not raising this necessarily as a matter affecting those two cases, but rather as a general matter and I do not think I need mention the names of the constituents concerned. In the first case, after I had written to the Joint Under-Secretary, an application was put in by a constituent for an invalid tricycle. The application was made on 29th June last year and the tricycle was delivered on 19th October. That was an interval of three-and-a-half months. I found subsequently that it takes an average of about six months between the date of application and delivery, so in this case the interval was something less than the average, although it was a considerable time.

When delivered, the machine was found to be defective in that it was provided with hand controls and the applicant was unable to operate a hand-controlled machine. It took no less than three months, from 19th October to 15th January, before the adjustment to the machine was made and the hand controls were replaced by a foot-controlled clutch. This is an example of the sort of delay that concerns me because, on the face of it, this would not seem to have been a terribly difficult adjustment and could have been done in, at most, a week or two—which, indeed, was the time my constituent was originally told it would take.

The second case concerned, not the supply of a new vehicle but the repair of an existing one. My constituent had an accident with his tricycle on 19th November, and as he was still able to run it until 16th December there was no question of its being completely wrecked. It went in for fairly extensive repairs on 16th December but, in all, that machine was in the workshop for six weeks.

I feel that those two cases are symptomatic of something wrong with the general arrangements in Glasgow both for the supply of spare parts and for the repair of these tricycles, and I understand from other hon. Gentlemen that there are complaints in other places about the arrangements for the repair and maintenance of these machines.

I got some information from the Secretary of State for Scotland as a result of a Parliamentary Question addressed to him on 14th March on the subject of repair and maintenance, and I think that the figures are worth quoting. I was informed that there are 206 invalid tricycles in Glasgow, of which 66 were issued in 1960, and that during 1960 the garages had 52 tricycles under repair for between two weeks and four weeks, and that 30 were under repair for more than a month. That means that out of a total of 206 machines, 82 were under repair, and that no fewer than 66 of those 206 were issued in 1960. In other words, about half the machines issued were in the workshops for over a fortnight during the year, and 30 were in the workshops for more than a month.

It should also be pointed out that these tricycles are used very largely by people who require them to get to work, and when the machines are off the road most of the people are either unable to go to work or are put to a great deal of inconvenience—and, in many cases, to a great deal of physical discomfort and pain.

It is also worth pointing out that a number of these people are in sheltered employment where, unfortunately, the wages are often quite low. Many of the people would, in fact, have a slightly higher income if they stayed at home and relied on National Assistance and so on, but they go to this work because they want to do something. It is terribly discouraging for them—when, in any case they have so little financial inducement to do this work—to be laid up, as so many of them are, for weeks at a time because their invalid tricycles have to go to the workshops for repairs which seem to them to take a disproportionate time out of all relation to the work that needs to be done.

I know that the Joint Under-Secretary has said that the number of spare tricycles available in Glasgow—to be hired, as it were, by those whose machines are under repair—is being increased from 26 to 52, but I should like to know something about their condition. I have heard complaints about the condition of some of the spare tricycles. There is also the point that those who are used to a certain machine and have a particular disability are naturally reluctant to take, even for a short period, a vehicle with which they are not familiar and which their disability may make it difficult for them to operate. The actual supply of spare vehicles, while an important matter, is not inadequate by itself, but what we are giving is an inadequate servicing arrangement.

The Secretary of State has told me that there are five garages in Glasgow authorised to carry out repair and maintenance work to these vehicles, but the bulk of the work is done by the Scottish Ambulance Service at Cowglen, and by one other firm. Out of the £8,000 paid in 1960, no less than £7,000 went to the Scottish Ambulance Service and this other private garage, so that it is surely misleading to state that there are five garages doing this work. The remaining three make up a very small proportion of the total work, because in the remaining £1,000 which they must have shared, no account has been taken of the minor repairs which are done by various garages according to circumstances. It is necessary to bring in authorised repairers only when more than minor repairs are required, and, as I have shown, apart from the Scottish Ambulance Service, only one other Glasgow garage is doing this work. I make no criticism of that garage, but it does seem odd that in a city of the size of Glasgow there should be this inconvenience to disabled people caused because these two garages only are available for this work.

I have wondered whether the complaints about delays in servicing, and the disturbing figures which I have quoted, arise partly from the fact that there is no adequate number of garages doing this very essential work. The other matter which would appear to be a legitimate source for criticism is the question of spare parts. The first case I quoted was of a new machine being delivered but found, subsequently, to be faulty in that it was necessary to replace one set of controls by another set. There, the real trouble was that it took three months before that second set was available. A lot of the delay seems to arise because spare parts are not available. On 14th February last the Joint Under-Secretary of State told me that the question of the stocks of spare parts held centrally in Glasgow was a matter which was being investigated; but this, after all, is a scheme which has been operating for a considerable number of years and it would seem to be an odd situation that an investigation into the spare parts position should be taking place only now.

There seems to be a lack of urgency on the part of the Government. I understand that this is a long-standing complaint, and one wonders why the stock of spare parts has not been increased long before now. I suggest that the real answer—and I think that the Joint Under-Secretary recognises this—would be to get rid of these machines altogether and to supply in their place small cars. I think that that will become Government policy, and therefore I expect no shattering announcement on those lines tonight. The satisfactory answer to all the difficulties—the tendency to break down, the complaints about the difficulty of manoeuvring, and so on—would be to supply small cars in place of these vehicles. In the absence of that, however, adequate repair and servicing facilities should be available. Without that—and I do not think that we have it in Glasgow—I shudder to think what the situation must be in other parts of Scotland, particularly in remote country areas.

I should like to have assurances tonight from the Joint Under-Secretary that the position in Glasgow will be considerably improved, because I know that many of the disabled people who must have these vehicles are happy to have them and are grateful in other ways to the Government for the facilities which are afforded to them but are nevertheless extremely unhappy about the repair and servicing position.

1.56 a.m.

The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. T. G. D. Galbraith)

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Glasgow, Craigton (Mr. Millan) for drawing attention to the difficult problems which can arise in connection with the repair and maintenance of invalid tricycles in Glasgow. I do not propose to be drawn into the question of whether cars should be supplied. The hon. Member will realise, I think, that that is outside the ambit of what we are discussing tonight.

I have taken the opportunity provided by this debate to look carefully into our present arrangements. I have also visited the Limb and Appliance Centre in Glasgow as well as one of the garages which caries out repairs on tricycles, so that I could see for myself how the scheme worked. My conclusion is that, on the whole, the record is not as bad as one might imagine after listening to the hon. Member's speech. Nevertheless, I agree that in this sphere, as in many other spheres, there obviously is scope for improvement. I hope to be able to tell the House how we are going about achieving an improvement and to satisfy the hon. Member that we do not intend to allow the grass to grow under our feet.

Before I do that, however, it would be helpful to the House if as a preliminary I explained the procedure whereby a patient obtains a tricycle in the first place—particularly as the first case to which the hon. Member referred was not one of repair and maintenance but was a question of initial supply. Initially, a patient's doctor recommends the need for a tricycle. This recommendation is sent to the Limb and Appliance Centre at Belvidere, where, usually within a week or so, the patient is examined by one the Board's doctors, together with one of the technical officers, in order to decide what type of vehicle is most suited for him. This is what happened with the hon. Member's constituent.

The recommendation is then forwarded to St. Andrew's House. This is done in order to ensure that all areas apply the same standard. Orders are then batched according to the different type of machine required. The hon. Member will appreciate that these machines, although they may all look the same, are very different. This batching process, together with the production process, usually takes from three to four months.

Of course, if the machine requires modification as well as merely being supplied, the period may be longer. That is what happened in the case of the hon. Member's constituent, because his medical condition had deteriorated in the meantime. If the modification is of a complicated kind—for instance, a change from right-hand to left-hand driving—it is carried out by the manufacturer. If the modification is of a simpler character but still, perhaps, quite complicated—for example, the substitution of a foot clutch for a hand clutch, as happened in the case described by the hon. Member—the modification will be carried out in Glasgow before the vehicle is delivered to the patient. The hon. Gentleman may think that such a modification is simple; but, although it is obviously simpler than changing from right-hand to left-hand driving the actual operation requires some fairly complicated engineering.

Mr. Millan

I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman, but surely the point of the delay in this case was that the part was not available.

Mr. Galbraith

I am coming to that. I agree with the hon. Gentleman. I was trying to point out that even something which appears to be fairly simple may involve a certain amount of engineering expertise.

I should perhaps say that until now no order has been placed until arrangements for garaging the machine have been completed, and, of course, as the hon. Gentleman appreciates, this has sometimes caused additional and unnecessary delay. In order to avoid this delay I have now decided to arrange for the order to go through immediately, and the time taken to supply the machine can be used to make the necessary garaging arrangements.

This innovation, I hope, will shorten the time taken to supply a patient with his tricycle, and to that extent he ought to benefit from the change.

After the machine has been delivered, either the technical officer or a mechanic from one of the approved repairers attends in order to give the patient lessons in the use of his machine—it was at this stage that the deterioration of the hon. Gentleman's constituent was discovered—and at the same time he explains to the patient how the repair and maintenance system works.

This, I think, is what the hon. Gentleman is really interested in and so I should like to outline the procedure which is followed here. So far as small repairs are concerned—that is, where the labour charge is less than £3—the patient is free to go to any garage he likes. But for more serious repairs or for routine maintenance the machine has to go to one of the approved repairers.

The reason for this arrangement is that these vehicles require specialised treatment which they would be unlikely to receive at an ordinary garage which had no experience of this class of work. Furthermore, by concentrating the work on a few garages it makes it possible for the 'technical officer to keep in closer touch with the work on the machine. It also means that the liaison between the technical officer and the repairer is obviously much better.

What happens when a breakdown occurs is that the Appliance Centre is informed and it arranges for the vehicle to be collected and repaired. On the other hand, when it is a matter of routine inspection, the patient will normally 'phone up the garage and a mutually suitable time will be arranged for him to bring in his vehicle; or, alternatively, the garage will collect it for him. That explains the procedure which I think is fairly satisfactory.

The problem with which the hon. Gentleman is really concerned is the time that it takes to carry out the repair. I have dealt with the build up of the time that it normally takes to supply a new machine. On average, as the hon. Gentleman himself said, it is six months, and Glasgow is not exceptional in this. The case which the hon. Gentleman was trying to propound was that the situation in Glasgow was worse than elsewhere. That is not so; six months is the average throughout the country. When I say "the country" I do not mean Scotland only, but England as well. Therefore, there is no question of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State being less efficient in managing this matter.

Where repairs are concerned, naturally everything depends on the nature of what has gone wrong. The routine inspection may take only an hour or so. On the other hand, if some unexpected defect comes to light, as it did in the steering of one of the vehicles which was in the garage which I inspected, a whole day's job may be involved, or even longer.

Where there is a major defect, for instance a broken crankshaft, part of the trouble is not only the complexity of carrying out the repair but the difficulty in obtaining the spares. I agree with the hon. Member that the service is perhaps not above criticism because the stock of spares is not as large as I think it ought to be. It is easy to say that, but the provision of spares to cover every contingency is a difficult matter because of the great variety of different types of machine, which is due partly to the fact that constant development and improvement is going on—nothing is standardised—and partly to the need to cater for different forms of disability. Our job would be very much easier if there were a uniform type of machine which could be given to all patients and which could remain the same for many years, but that is not the situation.

In spite of these obvious difficulties, the recent decision which has been taken to treble the number of spare engines held in Glasgow should go some way towards reducing the delays arising from lack of spares. Another improvement which I think will help is that in order to reduce the inconvenience to patients who are without a tricycle while their own machines are being mended, the number of spare tricycles available for loan has been increased to 10 per cent. of the total. I should say, by the way, that the figures which the hon. Member used were the total not just for Glasgow but for the whole Western Region. He asked whether they were all now on the spot. The answer is that they are not all on the spot but about two-thirds of the addition are. The figure of 10 per cent. on which we have decided is about twice the number of vehicles off the road for major repairs at any one time. It therefore should provide a fair margin for exceptional circumstances, but I agree with the hon. Member that it does not meet the need of a patient who cannot use an unmodified machine, and I agree too that nobody likes to use a new machine temporarily when he has become used to his old machine.

Mr. Millan

Are all these spare machines new machines in first-class condition? I take it that there is no question of old, dilapidated machines being hired out.

Mr. Galbraith

They are either new or completely re-equipped machines.

The hon. Member asked about the time taken to effect repairs. I have checked the position in Glasgow and I find that the time taken is, as I indicated earlier, no longer than elsewhere. During the six months up to 30th September, 1960, the time spent in the workshop at one of the garages was about one week, although the total time for repairs was over three weeks—because of the difficulty in obtaining spare parts to which I have referred. As the hon. Member appreciates—he referred to it when speaking of one of his constituents—where a vehicle is being repaired after an accident the time taken is bound to be longer. Of the 30 vehicles which had been in for more than a month, to which my right hon. Friend referred in answering a Question put to him recently by the hon. Member, 14, or roughly 50 per cent., had been involved in accidents. Because of the panel beating and so on, these accident cases always involve more work and take longer to put right than an ordinary case.

I do not wish to place too much emphasis on this point, but it would interest the House to know that, in spite of everything that the hon. Member said about complaints, over the last two years we have received only one complaint about delays in repairs. I accept that there have been many instances of minor grumbling and irritation caused to patients—that is bound to happen, for it happens when ordinary people take their car to a garage to be mended—but actual complaints of delay have been remarkably few. Perhaps the fact that the complaints that I have referred to have come from the hon. Gentleman's constituents may have given him a wrong impression of the quality of the service.

I think I can say without any complacency that my inquiries have shown the standard to be reasonably speedy, efficient and thoughtful. I was very impressed by the sympathetic attitude of the mechanics at the garage that I visited, for they gave me the impression that instead of regarding the vehicle just as another job to be done, they actually care about what they were doing and took a personal interest in the patient's well-being. They showed a remarkable knowledge of the different cases with which they had dealt.

Though I feel that the service is in reasonably good heart and that in Glasgow it is certainly no worse than anywhere else—not only in Scotland but in the United Kingdom—this will not prevent us from trying constantly to improve it still further so that those who are incapacitated and have this dreadful burden to bear will get the best treatment that we can possibly provide.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at eleven minutes past Two o'clock.