HC Deb 04 November 1996 vol 284 cc899-900
6. Mr. Ainger

To ask the Secretary of State for Wales how many health authorities in Wales have registered their concerns about the level of their funding in the current financial year. [283]

Mr. Gwilym Jones

On 16 October, my right hon. Friend met all five health authority chairmen in Wales and they briefed him on many matters, including the current financial position.

Mr. Ainger

Does the Minister share the view of one senior health service executive in Wales that the current financial position and the position that the service will face next year are horrific? Does he accept that trusts and hospitals throughout Wales face a stark choice this year—and possibly next, if his Administration are still there? The health service faces serious underfunding coupled with an overspend, and the only choice that trusts and hospitals have is to cut patient services. Does the Minister accept, as the Secretary of State apparently does, that there is a financial crisis in the health service? What does he intend to do about it this year?

Mr. Jones

Yes, this Administration will still be here this time next year. No, I do not accept the premise that the hon. Gentleman put forward on behalf of an anonymous health service employee in Wales. None of the health authorities in Wales—except Dyfed Powys, and he well knows the arrangements that I have already put in hand for that—projects a cash overspend.

Mr. David Evans

Is the Minister aware that in 1979, under the last Labour Government, all capital projects were abandoned because the International Monetary Fund was running our affairs and all hospitals were closed, thanks to the National Union of Public Employees and the Confederation of Health Service Employees? Is he further aware that nurses' pay fell by 23 per cent. because inflation was running at 26.9 per cent? Is that what the nation can expect if that lot over there ever come to power?

Mr. Jones

Yes, yes and yes. The Opposition deserve to be reminded—my hon. Friend is right to point it out—that the only Government in our history to cut spending on the national health service was the Labour Government of the 1970s. Such is the regard that the Opposition try now to profess in a different way. Anyone with doubts about whether they would still treat the NHS in Wales as a political football should look at how they do not give sufficient priority to our schools in Wales.

Mr. Gareth Wardell

Following the Calman-Hine report on cancer services and the submission to the Minister of a report by Professor Cameron of the University hospital of Wales, can the Minister tell us from which trusts health authorities should cease purchasing cancer services and to which trusts those contracts should be moved?

Mr. Jones

As the hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well, those are matters that are taken, and will be taken, forward by the health authorities as commissioners and by the relevant trusts. That process will continue.

Mr. Morgan

Do not those reports of deficits and overspend constitute an open-and-shut case of Government dishonesty in their financial dealings with the NHS? Why do the Government persist in cooking the books by getting all the health authorities and trusts to carry over their deficits into the next financial year, thereby lumbering the next Government with the problems of this one?

Mr. Jones

There is no question of lumbering the next Government because there will be a Conservative Government. We think long about all our responsibilities and seek to take forward the proper arrangements with the hospitals and health authorities to ensure that their finances are managed in the best possible way and that, as far as possible, they are spent where they matter—at the bedside.