Pay Beds (Hansard, 5 November 1991)

§ 12. Mr. Dunn
To ask the Secretary of State for Health what were the revenues for pay beds in the NHS in 1990–91.

§ Mr. Waldegrave
Total private patient income for 1989–90 was £92 million. Information for 1990–91 is not yet available.

§ Mr. Dunn
As the provision of day beds ought to be the responsibility of the trusts, will the Secretary of State take time today to condemn Labour's vicious attacks on those individuals who have been selected to help run the trusts?

§ Mr. Waldegrave
I join my hon. Friend in deprecating the attacks made by the hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook) on Anne Parkinson and Sheila Taylor, who have rightly been appointed to serve on trusts. I also join him in deprecating the attack on my noble Friend Lord Jenkin, who has accepted an appointment on a trust. I find it surprising that Opposition Front-Bench spokesmen wish to exclude spouses because of whom they happen to be married to when they have good records of public service.
The hon. Member for Livingston drew attention to the behaviour of previous Secretaries of State in this regard. Would he now like to condemn the behaviour of the last—and I mean last—Labour Secretary of State, Lord Ennals? At the same time as his hon. Friend the Member for Monklands, West (Mr. Clarke) is saying that pay beds are to be driven from the health service and given to private companies, Lord Ennals has taken a leading position as a director of a private healthcare company—while remaining a Front-Bench spokesman on health for the Labour party.

§ Mrs. Heal
Is the Minister aware that an Essex GP is calling on national health service hospitals in the Mid-Essex health authority to boost incomes by carrying out privately, in pay beds, procedures that they have effectively banned from the NHS? Does the Minister agree that to increase income from patients excluded from free treatment is not only an abuse of the founding principles of the NHS but a classic illustration of the two-tier health service that his Government are introducing?

§ Mr. Waldegrave
I welcome the hon. Lady to the Opposition Front-Bench team. I remember that when she came to the House she was, like her leader, a passionate supporter of CND. Their principles have gone by the board. As for the matter that she raises, I welcome the fact that GP fund holders, and all GPs, are doing more in their own surgeries, which cuts waiting lists and speeds patient care. I regret the fact that the hon. Member for Livingston saw fit not to answer the challenge that I laid down to him, just as he has not answered any of the challenges that I have laid down to him today, and that he has also seen fit to put the hon. Lady, on her first outing today, into a rather difficult position.