HC Deb 09 June 1986 vol 99 cc10-1
10. Mr. Coleman

asked the Secretary of State for Wales what representations he has received concerning the implementations of the Griffiths report in the National Health Service in Wales.

Mr. Mark Robinson

Since June 1984, when the circular setting out the arrangements for implementation of the recommendations of the Griffiths report in Wales was issued, my right hon. Friend has received some 46 representations about various aspects of the matter, from a variety of sources.

Mr. Coleman

Is the Minister aware that hon. Members have received considerably more representations than that from members of the professions in the NHS, such as nurses, medical authorities, scientists and physiotherapists, all of whom are expressing their anxieties at the manner in which the creeping bureaucracy is impinging upon their professional expertise in the NHS? What can that bureaucracy gain by sending people on expensive trips to the United States to find out how to run a national health service? What does that country know about it?

Mr. Robinson

On the creeping bureaucracy point, it is worth noting that management costs in the NHS in Wales have fallen from 5.2 to 4.3 per cent., even after the implementation of the Griffiths proposals. We have great confidence in the management procedures that are being put into practice in Wales. It is right for organisations to express their fears, but it is easy to leap to conclusions before the benefits of the implementation of such a management system are fully felt.

Sir Raymond Gower

Is it not a fact that when the management proposals in the Griffiths report were first promulgated there was a good deal of misunderstanding about them and that many in the medical and nursing professions felt that they would be excluded, but that that has not been the case?

Mr. Robinson

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We have heard that nurses are feeling upset, but a chief administrative nursing officer has been appointed in every health authority in Wales, director of nursing services posts are being established and no fewer than four nurses have been appointed to unit general manager posts in Wales.