HC Deb 16 December 1980 vol 996 cc128-9
3. Mr. Stephen Ross

asked the Secretary of State for Social Services whether, having regard to the Northern Ireland experience, any consideration is being given to the merging of the health and social services in other parts of the United Kingdom.

Mr. Patrick Jenkin

No, Sir.

Mr. Ross

In a Department which, admittedly, is looking for savings, is not that an area in which some savings might be achieved and also one in which a more efficient service might be provided? Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there are parts of the country—I suggest that my constituency is one—which would benefit from a merger of these services?

Mr. Jenkin

I am surprised that the hon. Gentleman does his constituents such a disservice. After all, it was only a month or two ago that I presented a prize to the chairman of the hon. Gentleman's area health authority for its admirable collaboration with the local authority in relation to social services. But perhaps the hon. Gentleman did not notice that.

Mr. Wigley

Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that a reason against any merging would be that co-operation was working satisfactorily? Does he also accept that the actuality is different from area to area throughout Britain and that in many areas there is a failure to reach the objective that was set out in the Health Services Act of close co-operation between health and social services? Unless that is achieved, surely there will be a need to look at these matters again.

Mr. Jenkin

The point made by the hon. Gentleman was well made by the Royal Commission when it said that successful collaboration between health and local authorities depended far more on the willingness to collaborate than on any institutional arrangements. I hope that all authorities will achieve the record of the best—of which the Isle of Wight is certainly one—in regard to effective collaboration for the benefit of patients and clients.

Mrs. Dunwoody

Does not the Minister agree that the professionalism of members of the social services has demonstrated that they are capable of doing an extremely good job? What will be his attitude towards their belonging to trade union organisations, in view of the fact that he appears to be suggesting in personnel circulars that there may be some way in which health authorities can get round the Employment Protection Act? That is hardly a way to promote either professionalism or good standards in the social services or the NHS.

Mr. Jenkin

I offer my congratulations to the hon. Lady on her appearance at the Dispatch Box as a health spokesman, and I hope that she will soon make the Shadow Cabinet as well.

The hon. Lady's question seems to have strayed a little from the original question. All I am doing is taking the view that people in the Health Service who wish to be active trade unionists must decide whether they will take the lead as a chairman of a branch of COHSE or whether they will be managers if they hold senior management positions. I would have thought that the hon. Lady would agree that there is a conflict here which cannot be reconciled by a person doing both.