§ 13. Mr. Newensasked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will estimate the number of patients who are known to have died during the last year from ailments or diseases for which they were awaiting operations or other forms of treatment which are normally successful in achieving a cure.
§ Mr. Geoffrey FinsbergFigures are not collected for patients who die while on waiting lists; but a patient whose condition became sufficiently serious would normally be reassessed and admitted urgently.
§ Mr. NewensDoes the Minister accept that thousands of people die each year while awaiting operations for kidney failure, bone marrow transplants and other operations that would save them from death? That is allowed to happen to save a few paltry million pounds, while we spend thousands of millions of pounds on Trident 862 and other nuclear weapons. Does he not accept that that is an outrage and that most people in the country think it an outrage? When will the Government say "This is a state of affairs that we are not prepared to tolerate and we shall spend the money to see that it no longer happens"?
§ Mr. FinsbergI had hoped that the hon. Gentleman would give us credit for the fact that we are maintaining in real terms the commitment to spend money on the National Health Service made by the Labour Government, which the hon. Gentleman on occasions supported.
§ Mr. EnnalsHow does the hon. Gentleman justify the fact that although between 1976 and 1978 the waiting list was below 600,000, over the past two years—1980 and 1981—there have been 650,000 people on the list? The Minister must surely agree that the waiting lists are substantially higher than they were during the period of the Labour Government.
§ Mr. FinsbergThe right hon. Gentleman occasionally indulges in selective quotations. The full facts were given by my right hon. Friend. There has been a substantial reduction since the Government came to office.