Hospital Waiting Lists (Hansard, 31 October 1988)

§ 11. Dr. Marek
To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what new proposals he has for reducing the waiting lists for in-patients in Wales.

§ Mr. Grist
The solution lies in continued action by managers and clinicians in health authorities, supported where appropriate by Welsh Office advice, monitoring and funding. This effort will continue.

§ Dr. Marek
Does the Minister not realise that the solution lies in his carrying out his promise that by last spring no in-patient would have to wait for more than a month to go into hospital for an urgent operation or for more than a year for a non-urgent operation? When I last asked the Secretary of State for Wales, he said that progress was encouraging. Does the Minister accept that the latest figures show that the waiting list for non-urgent operations has increased? Does he believe that his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is numerate? If he is numerate, does the Secretary of State understand the meaning of the word "encouraging"? If he does, surely he should exercise a little more honesty when he speaks to the House. When will the Minister carry out the promise that he made to the people of Wales well over a year ago?

§ Mr. Grist
I do not deny that I was perhaps rather rash to repeat the target that my predecessor set in 1986. We cannot achieve these targets overnight, but the hon. Gentleman is a little less than generous. The number of people waiting for more than a month for urgent in-patient treatment fell between March 1987 and March 1988 by almost 30 per cent. That is a rather different figure from those that he quoted.

§ Mr. Gwilym Jones
Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the most important factors in reducing hospital waiting lists in Wales is nurses? If the reports in today's edition of the Western Mail are to be believed, the serious problem of nurses pay must be tackled. If the reports are true, the nurses are being treated once again as a political football by the Opposition parties. Is my hon. Friend able to say what is the position on nurses pay in Wales?

§ Mr. Grist
There has been a huge improvement in the position of nurses compared with what we found when we come to power. Their pay had been cut by one fifth, whereas under our proposals nurses pay will rise by over 40 per cent. My hon. Friend may be interested to know that, following the Western Mail article, final details await clarification, but we expect to sort them out shortly. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales will be in a position to make an announcement later this week. We 655 are confident that the nurses pay settlement in Wales will be no less generous than that in England, and it is likely to be more generous.

Mr. Alan Williams
If, as the hon. Member for Cardiff, North (Mr. Jones) suggests, nurses are being used as a political football, is it not the case that at the moment it is the Government who are putting the boot in? Is it not a fact that in Wales, unlike in Scotland and in England, the Welsh Office is delaying the announcement of the final settlement of the pay review? Is it not clear from the evidence that has been submitted by the health authorities that Welsh nurses have been disadvantaged for many years because a higher proportion of nurses in Wales are undergraded than is the case in England? Why, therefore, must the Welsh Office try to enforce a settlement on the authorities that will match the settlement in England? Is the Welsh Office so impotent that the Treasury can just walk all over it? [Interruption.] The Secretary of State laughs. We know that he does not take anything very seriously. Will he explain to the nurses of Wales why, as a result of his intervention, they will not have their back pay by Christmas, whereas their counterparts in England and Scotland will?

§ Mr. Grist
The right hon. Gentleman has overlooked the fact that nurses are being regraded. It is a most remarkable achievement for the largest employer in Europe to be able to regrade a service of such size for the first time. The right hon. Gentleman must have missed what I was saying—that the settlement is likely to be more generous in Wales than elsewhere.