HC Deb 13 March 1995 vol 256 cc548-50
6. Mr. Ainger

To ask the Secretary of State for Wales how many consultants in Wales had published waiting times for first out-patient appointments in excess of 104 weeks on 30 September 1994 or in any subsequent set of statistics published since then.

Mr. Redwood

Comprehensive information on waiting times for first out-patient appointments is not collected centrally for each hospital consultant but is available for health authorities and hospitals in general. However, the latest issue of the "Waiting Times Information Bulletin" provides information on seven common surgical procedures. It shows that 15 of the 187 consultants included in the bulletin had a maximum waiting time of more than 104 weeks. That shows that the bulletin is doing exactly what it is intended to do. It lets people see where they have to wait a long time and where they can be seen more quickly, thereby enabling them to choose on an informed basis. I hope that the hon. Gentleman and his party welcome that.

Mr. Ainger

Bearing in mind what the Secretary of State has just said, I challenge his figure of only 15. On my reading of that information booklet, there are 19 consultants with a waiting time of over two years. There are also in total 66 consultants with waiting times of more than one year, and those figures do not take into account urology, dermatology, trauma or general orthopaedics. How on earth is the Secretary of State going to put in place, between now and 1 April—two weeks away—the resources to ensure that patients get their first out-patient appointment within six months?

Mr. Redwood

That is exactly what I intend to do. My current advice is that the health service can meet the new standards as from the beginning of the next financial year and will deal with the backlog shortly thereafter. I hope that Opposition Members will welcome the information that patients get. As the brochure makes clear, in practically every case there is a surgeon available with a short waiting time, just as in some cases there are surgeons who are very busy.

Is the Labour party saying that I should issue instructions to say that no patient should be allowed to join the waiting list of a surgeon who is popular, and that patients must go to another surgeon even if they do not choose that? That would seem to me wrong. What we want is proper information; people can then weigh the name and the reputation of the surgeon against the waiting time. At the moment, we are meeting all the patients charter guarantees—I am pleased about that—and I intend the service to meet the new tougher guarantees next year.

Sir Wyn Roberts

Has my right hon. Friend seen the consultants' report featured on the front page of the Western Mail today, purporting to show that £1 in every £10 spent in the NHS is spent on running it? Is that proportion correct and is my right hon. Friend satisfied with it?

Mr. Redwood

There are disputes about how to categorise administration and management costs, but I certainly think that we need to reduce some elements of the management costs. That is why I have imposed restrictions on new recruitment and have set out proposals to the House—along with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health in England—to make sure that we reduce the number of health authorities and the number of employees and managers that those health authorities enjoy. I believe that that is welcome in Wales.

I think that it will mean tighter control over management costs at the centre and proper administration in hospitals. I have linked it to a big programme to strip out forms, administration and unnecessary paperwork—and I shall announce more proposals on that shortly.

Mr. Morgan

Does the Secretary of State accept that there are many who are sceptical about the prospects of genuinely achieving the shorter waiting times by 1 April, and that they include not only Opposition Members but health service statisticians? One of them wrote to Mrs. Menna Davies of the Vale of Glamorgan community health council a few weeks ago to say:

The hospitals generally supply us with the best estimates they can but even those may be poor estimates of long-term waiting times. Will the Minister therefore assure us that, in his attempt to achieve the figures that he has set out by 1 April, he will not once again be visiting the statistical massage parlour?

Mr. Redwood

I think that the hon. Gentleman means that he welcomes our policy, which is to cut waiting times and to try to get all out-patients meeting the necessary person in the health service within six months. I have already said that the health service is pretty confident that it can do that for new patients after the beginning of April. Thereafter we want it to clear the backlog as quickly as possible. I have been discussing with the service ways in which that can be done.