HC Deb 24 November 1987 vol 123 cc134-5
14. Mr. Pike

To ask the Secretary of State for Social Services what representations he has received concerning actions taken by health authorities to balance their 1987–88 revenue budgets.

Mr. Newton

Representations have been received from a number of right hon. and hon. Members including the hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Pike).

Mr. Pike

What does the Minister intend to do to enable health authorities to meet the demands of the community and avoid making cuts in patient care, as they are being forced to do throughout the country? For example, in Burnley there is the closure of the Victoria hospital, which the local authority claims is a temporary closure, but it will be permanent, thus avoiding the consultation procedure.

Mr. Newton

I am somewhat surprised at the hon. Gentleman raising that point. He knows that the background to the proposals concerning the Victoria hospital in Burnley is the recent opening of a major extension costing £6 million providing the facilities at the Burnley general hospital.

Mr. Devlin

Is my hon. Friend aware that a regional audit team was recently put into my district health authority, where there is currently a shortfall of some £200,000, which will rise to a shortfall of £500,000 by the end of the year? Is my hon. Friend aware that cost-cutting reductions are being asked for across the entire northern region, but that there are other district health authorities within the northern region which are not being asked to make the same reductions? Will he join me in pressing the regional health authority to put the audit team into every other district health authority so that proper cost-cutting reductions can be made everywhere?

Mr. Newton

What I will continue to do, and have done on previous occasions, is to encourage regional health authorities to work together with district health authorities to tackle some of the problems. In my view the use of audit teams to look at the scope for savings and to contribute to the maintenance of services is a sensible part of those arrangements.

Mr. Nellist

Is the Minister aware that the real cuts that have taken place in health authority budgets have led in recent days to repeated cancellations of heart operations for babies as young as 11 weeks old in Coventry? Is he further aware that we learnt just over an hour ago that the parents of six-week-old David Barber, constituents of my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mrs. Golding), were refused permission in the High Court for an injunction to compel the Birmingham health authority immediately to carry out a life-saving operation on that baby? If there are any deaths because of cancelled heart operations, the Minister, his team and the Prime Minister will not be able to pass them off as accidents—it will be murder.

Mr. Newton

As the hon. Gentleman knows, the principal problem in these cases has been a shortage of intensive care nurses. I understand from the chairman of the West Midlands regional health authority, to whom I spoke this morning, that there has been some improvement in the staffing position, as a result of the return of some staff from illness, and that all the intensive care beds there are now open. I am hopeful that this will help, although I recognise that the clinicians must decide the order in which patients are treated, according to the urgency of their case.