HC Deb 11 July 1978 vol 953 cc1223-5
1. Dr. Vaughan

asked the Secretary of State for Social Services how many patients are currently awaiting admission to National Health Service hospitals in Great Britain.

18. Mr. Forman

asked the Secretary of State for Social Services how many patients are currently awaiting admission to National Health Service hospitals in Great Britain.

The Minister of State, Department of Health and Social Security (Mr. Roland Moyle)

Information in the form requested is not available as each country keeps statistics in a different form. The figure for England at 30th September 1977 was 591,096, for Scotland at 31st March 1977 53,974, and for Wales at 31st December 1977 35,143. In all cases, the latest available figure is given.

Dr. Vaughan

Has the Minister seen the article in The Sunday Times of 2nd July headed Twenty heart patients die waiting for operations"? Will he accept the offer of help from two Merseyside private hosptals to take in one heart case a week in order to reduce the waiting list? Will he also seek other offers of help from the private sector?

Mr. Moyle

I have seen the newspaper report. I have asked for a letter from the Liverpool area health authority. I shall consider the matter when I have received that letter. I do not take action on Press reports.

Mr. Forman

Is the Minister aware that as recently as the end of last month admissions to 36 hospitals were affected by industrial action? Does he agree that this does not help the Health Service at a time when it is already over-administered and under-financed?

Mr. Moyle

If the Health Service is over-administered, it is because the hon. Member for Carshalton (Mr. Forman) and his hon. Friends ensured that it would be over-administered. If the Health Service is under-financed, it is more financed than it would be if the hon. Member and his hon. Friends were in office.

Mr. Kilroy-Silk

Is my right hon. Friend aware that many people are waiting for heart operations in Liverpool and that the facilities and resources there are nowhere near sufficient to meet the demand in the north-west as a whole? Is he aware that patients have died while they have been on the waiting list—not 20, as reported, but 10? Is he further aware that this is not a new development? Does he agree that it is scandalous when a regional health authority has to be rescued by a private, parasitic medical service? Will he now give a clear and specific assurance that no further patients will die in Merseyside while they are waiting for heart operations and that he will provide the necessary resources?

Mr. Moyle

I am waiting for a report from the Liverpool area health authority. None of the alleged deaths was reported at the time that it occurred. I am aware that the north-west of the country is under-funded compared with the national average, although that is not necessarily so in the Merseyside area. I am aware of the concern in Liverpool. I shall pay attention to the problem and let my hon. Friend the Member for Ormskirk (Mr. Kilroy-Silk) have an answer after I have considered the problem in detail.

Mr. Boscawen

Is the Minister aware that since 26th June there have been no routine orthopaedic admissions to the Royal United Hospital in Bath? Is he aware that 1,500 cases are on the waiting list at that hospital? Does he know that a constituent of mine has been waiting for 18 months in great pain and has been told that the delay is due to a shortage of nurses? Is the Minister further aware that there has been a drastic cut-back in the recruiting of orthopaedic nurses to that hospital in the past few years?

Mr. Moyle

The hon. Member has not previously drawn my attention to the problems that he has just mentioned. I shall certainly look into the problem now that he has raised the matter. I am not complacent. There is a serious problem involving orthopaedic admissions nationwide. That is because there has been tremendous progress in medical techniques in the past few years. That has been accompanied by an increase in the number of referrals. It takes at least 15 years to train a consultant to perform these operations, and there is bound to be a gap between promise and achievement.

Mr. Grocott

Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is not just a question of the absolute numbers awaiting admission to hospital but a question of the discrepancies between hospitals which are often not far apart? What steps is he taking to ensure that general practitioners and patients are informed about hospital waiting lists so that they choose the hospital with the shortest list, even if it is further from their home?

Mr. Moyle

I agree with what my hon. Friend says about waiting lists. The management of waiting lists is one of the problems. The National Health Service has not been good at that in the past. We are ensuring that all general practitioners are circulated with waiting lists for particular specialties at all the hospitals in their areas. They might then break past habits and refer patients to the place where they are likely to receive rapid treatment instead of following the past pattern of selecting a favourite consultant and referring patients to him, irrespective of the length of the waiting list.