§ 6. Mr. Mark RobinsonTo ask the Secretary of State for Health if she will make a statement on the implementation of the patients charter waiting time guarantee in the South Western region.
§ Mrs. Virginia BottomleyLatest provisional waiting time figures show that the South Western regional health authority has been extremely successful in meeting the waiting time commitments in the patients charter. In line with the patients charter, no one in the region has had to wait for more than two years for any in-patient or day case treatment, or 18 months for hip or knee replacement or cataract operations.
§ Mr. RobinsonI am sure that my right hon. Friend knows that, five years ago, 13,500 people in the south-west were waiting for more than one year. I hear a rumour that that figure is down to 300. Can my right hon. Friend confirm that figure? Does she agree that it shows the effectiveness of hospital trusts, such as the East Somerset hospital trust? Does not it give the lie to some of the myths being peddled by the Liberal Democrats and others in the south-west?
§ Mrs. BottomleyI can confirm the rumour. Of course, the south-west has an excellent record of delivering on patients charter commitments, but across the country there have been dramatic falls in waiting times. Last year, for example, there was a fall of 24,000 in the number of people waiting for more than a year—almost a third—so the figures are the lowest ever. I am pleased that my hon. Friend paid tribute to the East Somerset trust, because there has been a great deal of investment in it. Like others, it is solving its problems and pioneering ever-higher standards of patient care.
§ Ms PrimaroloThe patients charter is wholly irrelevant to the real needs of patients, whether in the south-west or the rest of the country. While the Secretary of State has been concentrating on the time people wait in out-patient departments to see a doctor for non-urgent operations, one in 10 cardiac patients is dying while waiting for treatment. Children needing emergency beds in intensive care are being turned away from hospitals. Today's report in the Daily Mirror of the death of a young girl—
§ Madam SpeakerOrder. This is Question Time and I require a direct question to the Secretary of State.
§ Ms PrimaroloThe question is that the report in the Daily Mirror today of the death of a young girl follows on from a report that the Secretary of State has on paediatric care—
§ Madam SpeakerOrder. If the hon. Lady would put—
§ Ms PrimaroloI am going to.
§ Madam SpeakerNo, not going to. The hon. Lady will put what she has to say in the form of a question.
§ Ms PrimaroloThe Secretary of State has a report. Will she confirm that a quarter of paediatric intensive care beds are closed because of underfunding? Will she now make an emergency statement to the House that children who need emergency treatment will not be turned away from the national health service?
§ Mrs. BottomleySo far as I know, the question is about the South Western region. It is typical of the Labour party, with its shroud-waving approach to health care, that it should seek to use a question on the South Western region to refer to that other case. It is certainly a tragic case and all of us would greatly sympathise with the family involved. An investigation is under way by the British Paediatric Association into intensive paediatric care. Once its report is published we will certainly make it available and see what necessary action should follow.
Perhaps the Labour party might grudgingly be prepared to recognise that today is also one on which a dramatic fall in cot deaths has been reported. The gentleman who pioneered the work on cot deaths comes from Bristol and the hon. Lady might have wished to pay him credit, given that he comes from the south-west. We are also seeing improvements in child health as a result of the immunisation programme.
§ Dame Elaine Kellett-BowmanSince the hon. Member for Bristol, South (Ms Primarolo) introduced, quite improperly, another hospital authority in her question, may I set the record straight? There have been no cuts in intensive care paediatric beds in Manchester or Liverpool. The young girl who died so tragically—
§ Madam SpeakerOrder. Much as I am interested in what the hon. Lady has to say, she must put a question. If not, we shall move on.
§ Dame Kellett-BowmanMadam Speaker, I was doing as you did—reprimanding the hon. Member for Bristol, South for mentioning a different region—
§ Madam SpeakerI am the umpire here