HC Deb 21 March 1989 vol 149 cc901-2
Mr. Wray

To ask the Secretary of State for Health what research his Department is funding or carrying out regarding the relationship between deprivation and illness in general.

Mr. Freeman

The Department and the Medical Research Council are funding a number of research projects into the relationship between social conditions and health. I will place a list in the Library later today.

Mr. Wray

Does the Minister agree that there is great concern in my constituency about the Greater Glasgow health board, because of the standardised mortality rate in the age groups 40 to 69 which is 70 per cent. higher than in Sweden, Norway and Switzerland? In the east end of the city the rate is 43 per cent. higher than in any other part of Scotland.

Mr. Freeman

As the hon. Gentleman knows, that is a matter for the Scottish Minister with responsibility for health. The formula for allocating resources in future, the replacement of RAWP—the resources allocation working party—will reflect not only the resident population in each district health authority but morbidity. If social conditions manifest themselves in higher sickness rates, the allocation will be greater.

Mr. Hind

Is my hon. Friend aware that we have a very high level of unemployment in Skelmersdale in west Lancashire, and as a consequence there are certain types of disease that need to be treated? At a recent meeting of the local branch of the British Medical Association, it was said that under the new White Paper there might be a temptation for doctors who work in trust hospitals to overtreat their patients. Will my hon. Friend undertake that the research and detailed information that is available will be used to make sure that throughout the country that does not occur?

Mr. Freeman

The activities of consultants and doctors in all hospitals within the National Health Service, including self-governing hospital trusts which will remain within the NHS, are matters for the very high standards of professional organisations governing the conduct of consultants and doctors.

Mr. Robin Cook

Did the Minister see last week's report by the Health Visitors Association on homeless families and their health? Did he note its findings that, among the children of families in bed-and-breakfast accommodation, diarrhoea because of poor sanitation, respiratory infection because of dampness, and infestation with lice and fleas, are common? Does he accept those findings, and, if he does, will he minute his colleagues at the Department of the Environment and spell out to them the appalling impact on the health of our children from the sevenfold increase in homelessness under this Government?

Mr. Freeman

The standard of health of the children of this country has consistently improved under this Government. The Department is now undertaking some £18 million of research, including research into various aspects of child health that I referred to earlier. Next year, the amount spent on research by the Medical Research Council, including investigation into child health, will total about £176 million.

Mr. Michael Morris

Has my hon. Friend seen the parliamentary answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Smith) on average per capita prescribing, which seems to suggest that the highest prescription expenditure is in the most deprived areas of the United Kingdom? Does that not suggest that indicative budgets should be reconsidered?

Mr. Freeman

There is no question but that some doctors—I stress some—are over-prescribing. The pur-pose of our proposal for indicative drug budgets is to bring the practice of all doctors up to the best.

Forward to