HC Deb 11 May 1982 vol 23 cc583-4
4. Dr. Edmund Marshall

asked the Secretary of State for Social Services why the Department has requested regional health authorities to record the marital status of women who have given birth.

The Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security (Mr. Geoffrey Finsberg)

This is no new request. For more than 30 years marital status has been included in the hospital in-patient inquiry. But a fresh look at the information needs for the National Health Service is being taken by a steering group set up in 1980. It has proposed that marital status should continue to be recorded for the time being, and its proposals have gone out for consultation. Formal recommendations have not yet come to us.

Dr. Marshall

What business is it of the health authorities to pry into the marital status of patients? Without in any way devaluing the moral and social standing of marriage as an institution, will the health authorities confine themselves to health matters?

Mr. Finsberg

I remind the hon. Gentleman that the information has been supplied for the past 30 years. The lack of sensible statistics in the National Health Service has been criticised by health service managers and by the Royal Commission. I do not see why it should be wrong to ask the committee to consider the matter. When we have seen the recommendations, we shall decide what to do.

Mr. Greenway

Will my hon. Friend confirm or deny reports in the Daily Mail that his hon. and learned Friend the Minister for Health recently stated that doctors should be free to prescribe oral contraceptatives to girls under 16, without their parents' knowledge——

Mr. Speaker

Order. I think that that is another question, although I do not know much about it myself.

Mr. Terry Davis

Why does the National Health Service need any statistics on how many mothers are married and how many are not, if the purpose of the forms is to improve the health of the children?

Mr. Finsberg

There was general unease about the quality of information available within the National Health Service. That is why we set up the Körner committee. In the light of the Körner committee's recommendations and of the consultations, we can decide whether to change the system that has been in existence for 30 years, under several Labour Governments.