§ 11. Mr. MorganTo ask the Secretary of State for Health what consultations he has recently undertaken regarding the supply, and fitting and repair of artificial limbs.
§ Mr. MellorThese matters are dealt with in England by the Disablement Services Authority. We are regularly in touch with the authority's chairman.
§ Mr. MorganWhat on earth possessed the right hon. Gentleman's Department to bring wholly improper pressure on the Welsh health common services authority to award its three-year contract for the supply of artificial limbs in Wales to Intermed? Its artificial limbs may be straight, but its behaviour is so bent that two days after it was awarded the contract, which specified local manufacture at Rookwood hospital in my constituency, it said that it would move the manufacture and major repair of all artificial limbs for Wales to its central factory in Alton, Hampshire, contrary to the recommendations of the McColl committee on the supply of artificial limbs that manufacture and major repairs must always be done in the locality.
§ Mr. MellorArrangements in Wales are a matter for the Welsh Office, not the Department of Health. Prior to our beginning this exercise, Intermed's share of the lower limb market was 75 per cent. in England, but it is now 16 per cent. I should have thought that that was a move in the direction that the hon. Gentleman wants.