HC Deb 20 February 1990 vol 167 cc763-5
3. Mr. Menzies Campbell

To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will make a statement on the salary levels for speech therapists.

The Minister for Health (Mrs. Virginia Bottomley)

Agreement has been reached on speech therapists' pay for the period April 1989 to September 1990 and the new pay rates have been promulgated today. The settlement gives across-the-board increases in pay of 9 per cent. over an 18-month period.

Mr. Campbell

Does the Minister appreciate the extent of the crisis of morale among speech therapists working in the National Health Service? Why are they so poorly paid in relation to, for example, physiotherapists or occupational therapists? Does not their poor level of pay justify their feeling that the contribution that they make to the National Health Service is undervalued? What studies have the Government carried out to satisfy themselves that the low pay does not have an adverse effect on recruitment?

Mrs. Bottomley

Speech therapists are most certainly valued within the National Health Service. Under the new arrangements, their starting pay will be £9,487 ranging up to £22,087. The Department of Health NHS management advisory group is collecting information about recruitment and retention, and we shall look at it.

Mr. Devlin

I welcome the fact that speech therapists' pay has increased by 19 per cent. in real terms since 1979, but does not the fact that theirs is an all-graduate profession and the fact that they can so easily enter other areas of activity mean that they should be rewarded far more generously if their numbers are to be maintained and expanded?

Mrs. Bottomley

I assure my hon. Friend that there has been a considerable expansion in the number of speech therapists over the past 10 years. There are about 80 per cent. more speech therapists than there were 10 years ago. Their new starting pay level makes them more comparable with others in the Health Service and, more importantly, in the private health sector as well. But pay is not the only factor in recruitment and retention. The first report of the Select Committee on Social Services suggested a number of other areas where their needs could appropriately be met within the Health Service.

Mr. Tom Clarke

Does the Minister agree that there will be insufficient speech therapists to achieve what the Government say are their community care objectives and that, because of the starting salary, many young people are denied the right to enter a worthwhile and rewarding profession?

Mrs. Bottomley

I agree with the hon. Gentleman about the importance of speech therapists to the provision of care in the community, but I remind him that there has been an 80 per cent. increase in their number. Speech therapists' starting salary has increased by 46.2 per cent., from £3,800 in 1979 to £9,400. The comparable increase in starting salary when the Labour party was in power was a mere 12 per cent.

Mr. Rowe

I agree that those are encouraging figures, but does my hon. Friend agree that it might be better for speech therapists if they left the Whitley council and, taking advantage of the new arrangements for community care and the Health Service, seriously considered setting themselves up as independent, non-profit making trusts to tender their services to all the contractors who might wish to buy them?

Mrs. Bottomley

My hon. Friend is a long-term champion of speech therapists. I am meeting members of the College of Speech Therapists next week to discuss their concerns about future arrangements. Under the new regime, it is intended that they should continue to be able to receive patients on the basis of self-referral. The new salary structure will be an improvement and an enhancement, but they will want to discuss many other ways in which they can deploy their services under a future regime.