HC Deb 03 December 1996 vol 286 cc784-5
7. Mr. Hanson

To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will make a statement on the number of people currently waiting for NHS operations. [5616]

Mr. Dorrell

Half of all admissions to hospital are immediate. The latest available provisional figures, for 30 September, show that 1,060,150 people were waiting for admission. Of people waiting for admission, four out of 10 will be admitted within one month, half within six weeks and more than two thirds within three months. Fifteen thousand people—one in 70—were waiting longer than 12 months.

Mr. Hanson

Will the Secretary of State take this opportunity to welcome the Labour party's pledge to reduce the number of people on waiting lists—particularly for cancer operations—by 100,000? Will he recognise that that will benefit many of my constituents in north Wales, for which he is not responsible, and those who use Clatterbridge hospital in the Wirral? Will he take the opportunity today to recognise the pledge and support it in the House?

Mr. Dorrell

I do not support the pledge, because everyone who works in the health service knows that what the shadow health spokesman said at the Labour party conference is nonsense. To talk about a waiting list for cancer surgery is to talk about a waiting list that does not exist, and when the Labour party, which voted against the abolition of regional health authorities, talks about £100 million of administrative savings, it convinces nobody. The Government have delivered 25,000 more doctors and 55,000 more nurses to the NHS since 1979. That is why we are treating more patients. We have also cut the average waiting time for waiting list patients from nine months to four months. That is the reality of the Government's record on waiting lists.

Mr. Garnier

Will my right hon. Friend confirm that the three major acute hospitals in Leicester, which serve his and my constituents, are doing very well at reducing waiting times for patients of all categories? Will he further use this opportunity to scotch the scare stories put around by Labour politicians in and around the city of Leicester that the three major acute hospitals are bound to be reduced to two because of a shortage of cash in the national health service? Will he confirm that there will be three hospitals in the city so long as it is necessary to have them and that, if the number does go down to two, patient care and waiting times will be very much to the forefront of his mind?

Mr. Dorrell

As every Leicestershire Member of Parliament knows—including Labour Members of Parliament in Leicestershire—because we have been told by Leicestershire health authority, there is no proposal to reduce the number of acute hospitals in the city of Leicester. It is blatant scaremongering to suggest otherwise. What is going on is a review of acute service provision in Leicestershire to ensure that we deliver the most effective and efficient health care that we can to the people of Leicestershire. That, I hope, is supported by hon. Members on both sides of the House.

Mr. Barron

My constituent, Mrs. Walker, who lives in Brinsworth, is 85 years of age. She was told in October that she will have to wait until 17 March 1998 for a hip operation at Rotherham General Hospitals NHS trust. Her surgeon told her that due to severe financial constraints he is allowed to perform only two operations a week. The hospital told me that it is currently exceeding the number of orthopaedic operations for which it is funded". Is that not a direct consequence of the introduction of the internal market? We all know that the internal market uses hundreds of millions of pounds ever year on bureaucracy. Why does my constituent have to wait until 1998, in pain, for a hip replacement when the hospital, the surgeon and other health professionals are there? The only thing that is stopping it happening is the internal market that the Tories have introduced.

Mr. Dorrell

That is the politics of Jennifer's ear. Labour really is bankrupt on health. Now the hon. Gentleman leaps to the Dispatch Box to take up a constituency case. If he writes to me, I will take it up.

Mr. Harry Greenway

May I welcome the progress being made towards the provision of more single-sex wards in hospitals? Will the national health service, in principle, seek to make a single-sex ward available to any patient who asks for one?

Mr. Dorrell

As my hon. Friend knows, we have set out clearly the health service's commitment to move towards single sex provision. It is in the patients charter. It is a clear requirement of the management of the health service to deliver the patients charter. We have monitored that requirement, and we shall continue to do so. I assure my hon. Friend that that is an important priority of the management of the health service.