Nurses, Physiotherapists and Radiologists

HC Deb 12 February 1962 vol 653 cc913-4

35. Mr. Denis Howell

asked the Minister of Health if he is aware of the concern of hospital management committees at their failure to attract people of suitable educational attainment as nurses, physiotherapists and radiologists and what steps he will take towards an increase in wages for such staff to avoid a breakdown in the health service.

Mr. Powell

I have no evidence of any such failure generally. Pay is a matter for the appropriate Whitley Council in the first instance.

Mr. Howell

Does the Minister honestly believe that we can expect educated men and women of the calibre we require to fulfil the functions outlined in the Question at the rates of pay prescribed by the Council and confirmed by himself? If we can have an intervention in the Wages Council to stop wages from going up, why cannot we have one the other way round, when every hospital in the country is suffering as a result of rates of this kind?

Mr. Powell

Whatever the hon. Member expects, the fact is that young men and women are entering all these professions as students at an increasing rate—a rate which has been sharply increasing in the last two or three years.

Mr. K. Robinson

Surely the Minister cannot be as complacent as he sounds about the intake, for example, of physiotherapists and radiologists and a number of other categories? Is he not aware that he has a responsibility to the Service, apart from the fact that the Whitley Council fixes the rates? What is the present position about the nurses' claim which came before the Whitley Council as long ago as August?

Mr. Powell

The last is a separate question. As for recruitment, obviously we should always like to recruit faster, whatever the rate were, but I have placed on record the fact that the increase in the number of students, for example in physiotherapy, in the last two or three years has been extremely sharp.

Dr. King

Is the Minister aware that the British Medical Association is also concerned about the position of the various groups of medical auxiliaries and supports them in their request for upgrading of status and conditions of service?

Mr. Powell

Yes, but I think that these matters of pay are best dealt with by this machinery.