HC Deb 12 November 1974 vol 881 cc225-8
9. Mrs. Renée Short

asked the Secretary of State for Social Services what steps she intends to take to phase out private practice from National Health Service hospitals.

18. Mr. Peter Morrison

asked the Secretary of State for Social Services whether she intends to abolish private beds from National Health Service hospitals; and, if so, when.

20. Mr. Gwilym Roberts

asked the Secretary of State for Social Services what plans she has for phasing out private beds in National Health hospitals; and if she will make a statement.

Mrs. Castle

The Government's priorities have been clearly stated in two successive elections, and, as I have said in the House—[Vol. 880, c. 544–51]—I am fully committed by the outcome of those elections to a policy of separating private practice from the work of the NHS. Future arrangements for private practice formed part of the remit given to the Working Party on the Consultants' Contract chaired by my hon. Friend the Minister of State, and I am awaiting the outcome of its discussions before deciding on the detailed arrangement for implementing our manifesto commitment.

Mrs. Short

I am much obliged to my right hon. Friend. Will she bear in mind that the consultants who are taking such an intransigent stand on the working party are, in fact, a minority and do not represent the majority of the medical profession, and that if they withdraw their labour, as they are threatening to do if all does not go as they would wish, there are many junior hospital doctors who are ready and willing to be promoted to full-time consultants in the National Health Service?

Mrs. Castle

My hon. Friend is right. Something like 50 per cent. of consultants in the National Health Service already work full-time and dedicate their entire time and energies to their National Health Service patients. We believe that one of our priorities should be to reward them more adequately and to encourage others to follow their example.

Mr. Morrison

In view of the right hon. Lady's decision to phase out private beds from National Health Service hospitals, can she tell us whether she agreed with Mr. Aneurin Bevan when he said that if these were not charged in the National Health Service hospitals many specialists would leave and go to private nursing homes? Does she think that that is even remotely desirable?

Mrs. Castle

I know that the hon. Gentleman is a Conservative, but over a period of 30 years one expects National Health Service needs to develop and, therefore, the solutions to those needs to change. Admirer as I am of Aneurin Bevan for his great achievement in putting the National Health Service on the statute book and into operation, I am confident that if he were alive now and in my job he would be doing exactly what I am doing.

Mr. Roberts

Will my right hon. Friend accept again the welcome from this side of the House for her decision to phase out private hospital beds? Does she agree with me that, although it may not yet be in the manifesto, the overwhelming majority of the Labour movement looks forward to the day when the apartheid of private medicine and private education disappears? Moreover, in view of the alarming Press reports of abuses of the National Health Service by some consultants, will she inquire into these abuses to find out the truth?

Mrs. Castle

I am bound by the manifesto and it is that which I am operating. I would say to my hon. Friends that we are of course united in one overwhelming aim—that is, to secure a National Health Service in which the criteria for admission shall be those of medical priority only and not financial ones.

Mr. Alison

In the context of the phasing-out of private patients from National Health Service hospitals, what will be the right hon. Lady's policy on National Health Service patients at present in private hospitals under contract payments? Further, what will be her policy in respect of National Health Service patients who might seek admittance to private hospitals to be built in the future?

Mrs. Castle

In so far as any patient does not violate the criteria I have just laid down, if the whole criterion is medical priority for admission, there will of course be no change.

Mr. William Hamilton

Has my right hon. Friend read the report of the Sub-Committee of the Expenditure Committee chaired by my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, North-East (Mrs. Short), which received evidence that consultants were thieving—or borrowing in the long term, to put it politely—quite expensive equipment from the National Health Service? Will she make a thorough inquiry into that kind of abuse and ensure that, if private medicine continues to exist, it does so completely outside of and financed separately from the National Health Service?

Mrs. Castle

I am, of course, aware of the report. I have studied it and I am sure that that report has had a profound effect and influence in the policy on which we fought the election. I repeat that it is our policy to separate private practice from the National Health Service. We are not proposing to impose a State monopoly. We do not intend to impose a full-time salaried service, but we do say that private practice should be separate from and outside the people's own hospitals.

Sir G. Howe

Will the right hon. Lady accept that bland assurances of that kind carry very little conviction with the medical profession in the light of the observations made, for example, by her hon. Friend the Member for Cannock (Mr. Roberts), who asserted that it was the wish of the overwhelming majority of the Labour Party to see the end of private medicine? Cannot she accept that the determination with which she is pursuing this policy, which will damage the health service and seriously impair the morale of the medical profession, is as wrong-headed as the policy itself is misguided?

Mrs. Castle

Like hon. Members opposite, my hon. Friends have the right to state their individual views and to urge in the House the policies in which they believe. I have spoken today, as I did last Friday, on behalf of the Government and I have stated the Government's policy. Therefore, I repeat that the right hon. and learned Gentleman will find it desperately difficult to stir up feeling against our policy. I think he will find, as my hon. Friend said earlier, that there is a large and increasing number of consultants in this country who welcome our policy.