Health Authorities (Public Statements) (Hansard, 19 March 1987)

§ Mr. Frank Dobson (Holborn and St. Pancras)

I beg to ask leave to move the Adjournment of the House, under Standing Order No. 20, for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter that should have urgent consideration, namely, ministerial interference in the public statements of health authorities, their staff and consultants".

Despite all the efforts of DHSS Ministers and their 29-strong press office, the facts about the parlous state of the Health Service still get out. Sometimes, when this has happened in a particular health authority area, DHSS press staff have contacted the staff of the health authority concerned to ask them to stifle any dissenting voices and to rubbish any statements suggesting that all is not well with health care in the locality.

Last week, as part of a public relations exercise, the Government released welcome but minor extra sums of money to health authorities in areas where the cuts were biting deepest. DHSS headquarters demanded to see draft press releases that were to be issued by the four regions concerned and demanded the alteration of three of the four drafts to make them what was described as "more positive". To back up their censorship efforts, DHSS officials threatened one health authority official by saying that unless his press release was changed to suit them the money for the health authority would be withheld.

On Monday, The London Evening Standard printed a double-page spread on the parlous state of the NHS in west London. The section on the West Lambeth health authority quoted a named consultant physician at St. Thomas's hospital who had criticised the lack of resources that prevented him and his colleagues from doing a proper job. Before the day was out, the health authority received a call from No. 10 Downing street telling it to make the consultant keep quiet and to threaten him by referring to the terms of his contract. I remind the House that the man that Downing street was trying to gag was a consultant physician and not an ex-employee of MI5.

The matter is important because cowardly, covert censorship is a threat to proper standards of public life and contrary to our proper tradition that British people should be allowed to speak out when they see wrongs done. Democracy requires those who make decisions to defend their decisions themselves and not to get paid officials to tell lies and half-truths on their behalf.

This matter is clearly important and I believe that it merits urgent consideration.