HC Deb 29 April 1975 vol 891 cc214-5
4. Mr. Hal Miller

asked the Secretary of State for Social Services in which NHS hospitals private practice is undertaken; and if she will make a statement.

Mrs. Castle

Seven hundred and twenty-two NHS hospitals in England are currently authorised to provide up to 4,574 pay beds for private patients. These hospitals and the number of beds authorised are listed in the Hospitals and Health Services Year Book, a copy of which is in the Library.

Mr. Miller

Is the Secretary of State aware that when she comes to implement her plan for separating private and National Health Service medicine there will be a real risk that research will be impeded? Is she aware that private practitioners are attracting to National Health Service hospitals at present not only patients and money, particularly from abroad, but a great deal of research leading to the building up of valuable teams of experience in the National Health Service? How does she propose to provide for these matters when the separation takes place?

Mrs. Castle

I do not think that the hon. Gentleman has outlined a real difficulty and danger. Research and treatment of patients from abroad can and do continue in specialised hospitals. The difference is that the fee does not go privately to the consultant but goes to the hospital. That is the distinction.

Mr. Norman Fowler

Will the Secretary of State confirm that the abolition of pay beds is a policy which will require legislation? Will she also confirm that her policy will add millions of pounds to the cost of the National Health Service, is totally irrelevant to the needs of that service and will please only the kind of men who a few weeks ago sought to starve out patients in one London hospital?

Mrs. Castle

It does not lie in the mouths of Conservative Members, who consistently refuse to condemn the consultants' industrial action, to raise questions of that kind. Without accepting any of the hon. Gentleman's premises, I must ask him to await my statement.

Mrs. Knight

Will the Secretary of State issue a directive aimed at stopping the unkind treatment in some NHS hospitals of patients who are there in private beds, and who are treated unkindly simply because they are in private beds? Will she point out to those concerned that before meeting the cost of their fees these people have usually paid just as much as any other NHS patient towards the facilities and treatment they are having?

Mrs. Castle

Of course, I would expect the standards of care to be the same for all patients in the health service, whether private or NHS, and that applies both ways.

Mr. D. E. Thomas

Is the right hon. Lady aware, although it does not fall within her area of responsibility, that there are only 68 pay beds in all the NHS hospitals in Wales and that this has had no detrimental effect on the standard of the health service there?

Mrs. Castle

I fully accept that. I am sure that the same position applies in Scotland. Perhaps one day England will catch up.