HC Deb 24 November 1969 vol 792 cc20-1
29. Mr. Christopher Price

asked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will make a statement on his visit to Birmingham to investigate the affairs of the Birmingham Regional Hospital Board on 21st November.

Mr. Crossman

The main object of my visit was to discuss the internal and public relations of the board. It unanimously agreed with me on the need at one and the same time to observe the normal rules of confidentiality following the model of, for example, the Birmingham City Council and simultaneously to improve the present quite inadequate flow of information from the board to the public.

Mr. Price

In thanking my right hon. Friend for coming to Birmingham and for all he did with the board, may I ask what guarantee he can now give that the flow of information will improve and that there will be greater public participation at early stages of planning in the schemes of this hitherto thoroughly secretive hospital board?

Mr. Crossman

I do not think that I would accept the word "secretive" of the hospital board. I would put it this way. The board, with an enormous area stretching from Stoke in the north right through to Stratford in the south, had particular difficulties with information. I have given consent to the appointment and building-up of an information unit, and my own information officer will be making a visit to ensure that it is done in a professional way. No professionals can guarantee it, but I think that we have a good chance of improving it a good deal.

Mr. Dance

Would the right hon Gentleman agree that it is not so much a flow of information which is wanted from the hospital board but a flow of finance from the central Government to carry out this commitment?

Mr. Crossman

That is a different question, on which the hon. Member can put down a Question to me.

Mr. Speed

Would the Secretary of State agree that one of the ways to resolve the problem would have been to split the board, which covers a very large area, into two and enable the many areas not at present represented on the board because of the size of the area to have effective and personal representation?

Mr. Crossman

I had informal discussions with the board this time about this and I was struck again by the not quite unanimous but overwhelming opinion that administratively and medically the area is a defensible one and that it would be difficult to divide it without cutting off part of it from any teaching hospital. That would make the cut-off area a weak and ineffective unit.