HC Deb 25 April 1989 vol 151 cc790-1
2. Mr. Pawsey

To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many representations he has received from members of the public about his White Paper "Working for Patients."

Mr. Kenneth Clarke

I have received well over 2,000 representations from members of the public, expressing a wide range of views. I shall take these into account as part of the process of implementing the proposals.

Mr. Pawsey

Can my right hon. and learned Friend estimate how many of those representations are based on complete inaccuracies? Will he join me in deploring the black propaganda circulating among so many of our constituents, and causing such fear and distress to the elderly? What further action can he take to reassure the British people that the White Paper will improve the Health service?

Mr. Clarke

I regret to say that a proportion of the representations that I have received are indeed based on inaccuracies. They come from two main sources. One is the campaigning literature about the contract, which suggests that somehow the elderly will be turned away and that other damage will follow; the other is the Labour party, which is carrying on a private and eccentric campaign of its own, claiming that it is rescuing the Health Service from privatisation. I have never proposed its privatisation, and nor has any other member of the Government.

Mr. Wigley

Surely the Secretary of State accepts that all the GPs who are responding negatively to his proposals —as the overwhelming majority are—are neither paranoid, to quote the hon. Member for Wyre Forest (Mr. Coombs), nor scurrilous, to quote the Secretary of State. They are genuinely concerned about the future of a service to which they have given their lives, and it is time for the right hon. and learned Gentleman to respond more sensitively to their representations.

Mr. Clarke

Very few GPs, I think, would challenge my aims of improving general practice. Very few do not accept, for instance, that we should seek to attain World Health Organisation standards of vaccination for children and should not get cervical screening to a level of 80 per cent., which will help to tackle the biggest single avoidable cause of death among women in this country.

I think that those aims have the support of the great body of responsible GPs, and it is a pity that their representatives believed recently that they were supporting their interests by putting around scurrilous leaflets. I hope that those representatives will now come back to discuss the serious aims of general practice with me and with my colleagues.

Dame Jill Knight

Are not so many GPs behaving as they are because they have been totally misled, misinformed and disinformed by their own leaders in the British Medical Association? Will my right hon. and learned Friend constantly try to fight off those lying attacks, particularly the claim that the aim of the review is to cut back expenditure in the National Health Service?

Mr. Clarke

The Government have increased expenditure on the NHS more than any Government. I assure my hon. Friend—if she needs reassurance—that all our plans for the future are based on the expectation that expenditure on the NHS will need to increase in line with rising demands and changes in demography.

Similarly, my proposals are not aimed at any cutting of costs in general practice, and are certainly not aimed at cutting the average remuneration of doctors. What we are seeking to do is use resources to the best effect for patients, and to use rewards for doctors in a way that encourages higher standards of service.

Mr. Leighton

Is the Secretary of State aware that I have conducted a poll among all the doctors in my constituency, in which 47 voted against his proposals and three in favour? Is he aware that their letters were accompanied by impassioned criticism of his proposals? What notice is he prepared to take of their representations?

Mr. Clarke

I am meeting thousands of doctors, and so are my ministerial colleagues. We are taking serious account of all constructive representations put to us. It is pointless to consider accounts of straightforward votes of the kind to which the hon. Gentleman has referred unless we know whether they concern the contract or the White Paper; if the White Paper, what part of it; and what proposals they are putting forward.

I find that discussions with doctors who are seriously committed to the Health Service—as the great body of doctors are in this country—lead to much more productive results than votes, leaflets or the campaigns to which we have been subjected in the past week or two.