HC Deb 26 October 1994 vol 248 cc876-8
4. Mr. Nigel Griffiths

To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will give the most recent figures for waiting lists for operations in trust hospitals.

The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Ian Lang)

More people are being treated in NHS hospitals than ever before. In the year to June 1994, the number of out-patients treated rose by 2.6 per cent., the number of in-patients treated rose by 1.6 per cent. and the number of day cases treated rose by no less than 18.4 per cent. I am arranging for all the most recent figures for waiting lists to be sent to the hon. Member and published in theOfficial Report.

Mr. Griffiths

If the Government's record is so good, why are patients with chronic heart disease having to wait for up to 13 months? Why are heart pacemakers being rationed to 750 a year in Lothian? Will the Secretary of State hold an inquiry into the fact that heart patients are dying because of long waiting lists for treatment?

Mr. Lang

On 30 June this year, Edinburgh Healthcare trust had a total waiting list of nine in-patients, and no day-case patients. Waiting lists in Lothian are very short indeed. There has been a substantial increase of 6 per cent. in Lothian health board's budget. As for waiting lists for individual treatment, it is for each health board in Scotland to find the best and most effective way of obtaining the ever-increasing range of treatments that are now available for the health service.

Mr. Wallace

How many patients in NHS hospitals and trust hospitals in Scotland have been operated on at the Health Care International hospital in Clydebank? Does the Secretary of State accept that there is considerable public concern about the amount of public money that has been invested in that hospital, and would he welcome a National Audit Office investigation of the use of public money for the project?

Mr. Lang

Any investigation of any such organisation that any official body considers it appropriate to conduct would certainly receive full co-operation from the Scottish Office and from me.

I believe that the figure for which the hon. Gentleman asks is small. I see no objection, however, to giving any health board that has the necessary resources and feels the need to benefit patients on its waiting list the opportunity to do so. I think that health boards should be entitled to take advantage of such opportunities.

Mr. George Robertson

Does the Secretary of State not recognise that concern about future hospital waiting lists has a good deal to do with the scandal involving Health Care International in Clydebank? Does he not recognise that, in the light of the long-standing public concern about HCI—which grows with every daily revelation—and his silence on the issue, until and including today, has been seen as suspicious and sinister?

What precisely has been the Secretary of State's role in the whole affair? Will he now tell the House exactly how much public money the Government have allocated to this shaky project? Is it not true that £40 million may be just the tip of a financial iceberg? What will happen to a hospital that was specifically designed solely for overseas patients, and which now threatens to swamp and damage the national health service?

Mr. Lang

The idea that a private sector health care service set up in Scotland, bringing great expertise in specialties that are not readily available around the world, should damage the interests of the health service is preposterous. The Labour party is blinded by its own ideology. It will not accept health care of any sort unless it is offered through the national health service. If health service patients are able to benefit from Health Care International, or from any other private sector hospital, and health boards decide that they can afford to use services in that way, thus shortening their waiting lists and helping patients to receive treatment, those services should be available.

Financial help of about £30 million has been offered for that inward investment project. That should be seen in the context of the fact that some 346 inward investment projects have been secured in the past five years, bringing or securing some 47,000 jobs and attracting more than £2.5 billion of investment to Scotland. HCI is the sort of successful initiative that is creating new enterprise, new activity and more jobs in Scotland.

Mr. Worthington

The Secretary of State should take account of the fact that in 1987, when he and his predecessor authorised the project, HCI said that

it has been and will"—

Madam Speaker

Order. I remind the hon. Gentlemen that it is not in order to quote during Question Time; perhaps he will paraphrase.

Mr. Worthington

I speak in words that are remarkably similar to those used by HCI, which said that it has been and will continue to be the policy of HCI not to market its services to citizens of the United Kingdom. That was its pledge, which the Secretary of State accepted. Its chief executive is now saying that he sees nothing wrong with offering its services to health boards and that it would be "bizarre", to use his word, if the west of Scotland were the only place not to receive its services. Does the Secretary of State intend to keep HCI to its pledge in 1987, and will he give an undertaking that no activity of HCI will damage any hospital in the Greater Glasgow area?

Mr. Lang

I see no likelihood of any activity of HCI damaging any health board hospital. Is the hon. Gentleman seriously suggesting that patients who could be treated by HCI and whose health boards would like them to be treated by it should be denied the opportunity to have treatment earlier than they would otherwise just because of the ideological blockage of Labour Members? That would be preposterous. Labour Members should express support for an enterprise that brings 400 jobs to Clydebank and Milngavie. The hon. Gentleman welcomed the initiative when it was announced, saying that the development is bringing much-needed employment to a jobs-starved community. Labour Members should express the wish that the venture should succeed.

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