Stoke-on-Trent (Hansard, 17 December 1962)

§ 37. Dr. Stross
asked the Minister of Health whether he is aware that in Stoke-on-Trent the ten-year building programme has had a detrimental effect on the financial ability to maintain older buildings which are not being replaced in this programme; and whether he will make specific inquiries and give what additional help is needed.

§ Mr. Powell
No, Sir. The maintenance programme has not been restricted.

§ Dr. Stross
As it might be thought that I framed my Question perhaps rather clumsily, may I ask the Minister whether he is aware that the impression which I have is that this is a national problem—namely, that the amount of finance available to the regional boards is now such that their allocations, in turn, to hospital management committees are not sufficient to allow them to see that any replacement on maintenance is kept up to the standards which they prefer?

§ Mr. Powell
Throughout the country the total value of the revenue allocation has been rising, but it is for the regional boards, in the first instance, and also 864 for the hospital management committees, to decide how they shall allot it as between maintenance and other forms of revenue expenditure.

§ Mr. K. Robinson
Is not the Minister aware that one of the effects of the Hospital Plan, at least in some regions, is that there are practically no minor capital moneys available to the type of hospital referred to in the Question if they do not figure in the plan? Is he further aware that one regional board—I hasten to add not that with which I am associated—has only £7,000 a year available for capital work on those hospitals which do not appear in the plan?

§ Mr. Powell
This Question does not relate to capital expenditure, which, as the hon. Member knows, includes minor works. It refers to revenue expenditure. There is a good deal of misunderstanding about the status of minor works under the Hospital Plan, and I should be glad to clear that up if the hon. Member will either communicate with me or put down a Question.

Mrs. Slater
Does the Minister mean that putting in a new sluice room, for example, or modernising the bathroom and lavatory facilities, must come out of revenue? Is it not that type of work, modernising the hospital and making it more efficient, which the present situation is preventing from being done?

§ Mr. Powell
That sounded to me like capital expenditure. The total of capital expenditure is annually increasing at a rapid rate.