49. Mr. Gresham Cookeasked the Minister of Health how many regional hospital boards have a cost controller on their staffs; and whether he will require all regional boards to make such appointments, with a view to checking rising costs in the National Health Service.
§ Mr. PowellEvery regional hospital board has a chief financial officer responsible to it for control of cost.
Mr. CookeIs my right hon. Friend cognisant of the fact that some of these regional chief finance officers are not cost controllers and are not trained in cost accounting? Should it not be an essential, in order to keep down costs, that these men should have training in cost accounting, or have under them cost accountants learned in these matters?
§ Mr. PowellI fully recognise the importance of cost accountancy in the hospital service, but I am not satisfied that it would be the right course to have a special cost officer. That might well result in diminishing the responsibility of the regional hospital board officers for controlling costs.
§ Mr. SnowIs the right hon. Gentleman aware that his response to this attempt to get a further inflation of 1196 administrative staff will be warmly welcomed? Is he also aware that the finance officers he has mentioned are, in the main, perfectly competent to deal with the directives they receive on the subject of costing control?
§ Mr. PowellI do not think there is any limit to the attention which can be paid to the controlling and limitation of cost, and to the obtaining of value for money, in the hospital service.