NOTICE OF NOTIFIABLE WORKS (Hansard, 19 November 1976)

§ Mr. Moyle

I beg to move, That this House doth disagree with the Lords in the said amendment.

This amendment seeks to define "hospital premises" as premises which would have been controlled premises but for the fact that they provide fewer than 100 or 75 beds, depending upon whether the facilities are in London or in the provinces.

The purpose of the notification system is to provide the Board with a body of information about the scale and nature of private sector developments to enable the Board to perform effectively its functions, one of which is to limit the size of the private sector under Part III. The Government have been consulting on a 1781 definition which would provide the Board with the necessary and valuable information and, until that is realised, we ask the House to reject the amendment.

§ Mr. Patrick Jenkin

This was a point which we exposed in Committee almost as a side wind of an amendment moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Mrs. Knight). This again was an amendment on which there was a tied vote in Committee and which was guillotined on Report.

As it left this House, the Bill provided that for the purposes of the notification procedure any premises used or to be used for the prevention, diagnosis or treatment of illness or the reception of patients had to be subject to the notification procedure. This would enable the Health Services Board and, through it, the Department to compile an entire Domesday Book of every conceivable sort of premise, however irrelevant for the purposes of the control of development of independent hospital premises that might be. It would include every kind of sick room and, for example, any facility for the treatment of accidents at sports grounds. My hon. Friend the Member for Edgbaston suggested that it would include even geriatric homes. All sorts of premises would be swept into the net for the purposes of the notification procedure.

This seemed to be totally unnecessary and a gross infringement. But then it turned out that it was the Government's intention to collect a comprehensive list of premises available in the private sector —[Interruption.] The Secretary of State appears to be trying to give the impression that he was not aware of that. However, that is what his hon. Friend said in Committee. He said that it was the purpose not just to complete the control provided for in Part III but to go widely beyond that and to compile an enormous dossier of every conceivable sort of premise which might be used for the treatment or diagnosis of illness or even for the prevention of illness.

This is entirely unnecessary for the purposes of the Bill. We recognise that, if we are to have a control of the kind provided for in Part III, there must be measures to make sure that the control is not being evaded and there must be some way, therefore, of notifying the authorities that a premise might come 1782 within that control, and it is for them to decide that it is one for which a permit is needed.

Therefore, we put forward an amendment, on which my noble Friends in another place are now giving this House an opportunity to express a view, so that the only premises to which notification applied were premises which would be controlled premises but for the fact that the number of beds which they provide or will provide is smaller than that specified in section 12(2)". Clause 12(2) contains the definition of "controlled premises" and defines them in five specific categories—premises which are to be used for the carrying out of surgical procedures under general anaesthesia, obstetrics, radiotherapy, renal dialysis and radiology or diagnostic pathology.

The purpose of the control is to ensure a measure of surveillance over the construction of large independent hospitals providing acute medical services. According to Clause 12, only premises of that kind should be defined as hospital premises for the purposes of giving notice of notifiable works.

The amendment, which is exactly the same as that moved in this House but not debated, is sensible and will avoid the authorities being cluttered up with vast amounts of material which will require to be notified. I hope that the Government, on reflection, will accept the amendment. If they do not, I urge my hon. Friends to join me in the Division Lobby in its support.