HC Deb 25 May 1977 vol 932 cc1388-9
12. Mr. Crawford

asked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will pay an official visit to Bridge of Earn.

Mr. Gregor MacKenzie

My right hon. Friend has at present no plans to do so.

Mr. Crawford

Is the rundown of the Bridge of Earn Hospital symptomatic of the general Scottish Office thinking that small hospitals serving local communities should be closed? If that is so, does the Minister agree that to phase out small hospitals serving local communities is a scandalous and retrograde step?

Mr. MacKenzie

Certainly it is not the policy of the Scottish Office to phase out small hospitals just because they happen to be small hospitals. As I understand it, an overall plan for health services in the Tayside area has envisaged the eventual replacement of the Bridge of Earn Hospital by a new district general hospital at Perth, which we think will serve a wider area.

Mr. Buchanan-Smith

Is the Minister aware that there is a serious worry in Tayside, not only in Bridge of Earn but in Brechin, about Stracathro Hospital in particular, that the building and development of Nine Wells Hospital, in Dundee, is causing excessive centralisation and leading to lengthening waiting lists for patients in a large district, and is causing people to think that the hospital board and the Government are more concerned with statistics and less concerned with individuals, as patients, who have to be treated as human beings?

Mr. MacKenzie

It is the policy that all patients should certainly be treated as human beings and, indeed, cared for appropriately. In regard to the whole question of centralisation and the hospital at Dundee, if my memory serves me rightly, that was not one of the initiatives taken by the present Government, or by an Administration of this colour of days past. However, the hon. Gentleman may have misunderstood my reply to the hon. Member for Perth and East Perthshire (Mr. Crawford) a few moments ago, when I said that plans are now afoot for a hospital at Perth, which indicate that not all the hospital facilities are to be centred in the Dundee area.

Dr. M. S. Miller

One must consider, of course, that it is very important that patients should be looked upon and treated as human beings, but it is also very important that patients should have the best treatment that is available. That treatment, with the highest scientific and technological advance, can be provided only in a place that has a large catchment area, otherwise the skills are not available. Nice as cottage hospitals may be from the romantic point of view, and though they have a part to play, they cannot take the place of hospitals to which the skills are drawn if the area is a large catchment area.

Mr. MacKenzie

I appreciate my hon. Friend's point. It is right that there is a place for small hospitals, but I think that we all understand that a concentration of skills is extremely valuable for those who have serious illnesses.

Mr. William Ross

Does my hon. Friend appreciate that it was while the hon. Member for North Angus and Mearns (Mr. Buchanan-Smith) was at the Scottish Office that Nine Wells was started upon—

Mr. Buchanan-Smith

That is not true.

Mr. William Ross

—and the first tenders were taken in? Does my hon. Friend agree that all the facts about centralisation were known when the Tory Government started on the project?

Mr. MacKenzie

My right hon. Friend backs up what I said earlier. What my right hon. Friend has just said is my recollection of what happened some years ago.