Basildon Hospital

HC Deb 14 May 1985 vol 79 cc161-2

7. Mr. Amess

asked the Secretary of State for Social Services how many people were waiting for urgent operations at Basildon hospital in each of the last five years.

Mr. John Patten

On 31 December 1984 the provisional inpatient waiting list total for all surgical specialties in Basildon hospital was 1,720. The corresponding figures for the years 1980 to 1983 were 2,194, 3,190, 2,100 and 1,891, respectively, the figure for 1982 reflecting the effects of the unfortunate National Health Service industrial action in that year. It is not known centrally how many of these were urgent cases.

Mr. Amess

Will my hon. Friend join me in condemning the alarmist and highly irresponsible remarks of one or two of the Opposition Front Bench spokesmen when they visited Essex, and Basildon in particular, and take this opportunity to put the record straight by praising our local health service?

Mr. Patten

I think that my hon. Friend must be referring to the hon. Members for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) and for Peckham (Ms. Harman) who have got hold of a set of totally incorrect and fallacious figures and have used them to knock the National Health Service, in particular the National Health Service in Basildon, which has a splendid record of increased numbers of operations and, best of all, has brought about since 1979 a radical reduction in the number of people on waiting lists for over a month.

Mr. Dobson

As the Minister says that his Department does not hold figures centrally relating to those on urgent waiting lists in Basildon, perhaps he will explain to me why I am in possession of a document headed "Form SBH 203, Dept of Health and Social Security", which records that on 30 September 1984 no fewer than 436 inhabitants of Basildon and Thurrock were awaiting urgent operations and that no fewer than 279 of them had been waiting for more than a month for urgent treatment.

Mr. Patten

I do not know where the hon. Gentleman gets his figures from and in which brown envelopes the figures were delivered to him. What I do know is that the waiting lists in the Basildon area are decreasing, that waiting times are coming down fast and that the standard of health care has improved radically in the last five years.