HC Deb 24 June 1997 vol 296 cc658-60
6. Mr. Skinner

To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many hospital trusts have notified his Department that they will be in debt in the current year; and if he will make a statement. [3471]

Mr. Dobson

I am sure that my hon. Friend will be interested to know that, as part of the unfortunate legacy that we inherited from the outgoing Tory Government, 128 NHS trusts out of a total of 429 entered the current financial year in deficit, as did 59 of the 100 health authorities. I have asked the trusts to submit to me by July their revised financial plans for the current year; then I shall be able to find out what debt they expect to be in at the end of the year.

Mr. Skinner

Does my right hon. Friend, like the rest of us on the Government side of the House, acknowledge that those figures are appalling, as is the fact that when Labour assumed office there were 1,164,000 people on the waiting list? The Tory Government's grand Frankenstein experiment of meddling with the national health service, and trying to privatise it without telling the British people what they were doing, has resulted in misery for millions of people.

I wish my right hon. Friend well in his shuffling of the pack at the national health service, moving money from one area to another, but does he agree—I shall help him here, so I hope that he does—that next Wednesday, when the Budget is announced, it will be essential for his Department to receive more money? Does he agree that we need to raise additional revenue, so that after five years the national health service will be in as grand a condition as it was when we kicked it off in 1945?

Mr. Dobson

I should explain to my hon. Friend that even the figures that I announced in my main answer were achieved only because health authorities and trusts failed to pay their creditors as quickly as they should have done—"doing a Hezza", I think it is called—and also transferred funds from capital to revenue. That demonstrates what a desperate situation they were in.

For the time being, all I can say about the funding of the health service is that far too much money is going into the bureaucracy, and that we have arranged for £100 million of that to be transferred to patient care this year. We also revealed, in the recent report, that between £80 million and £100 million has been wasted by prescription fraud, about which the previous Government did nothing.

We must ensure that every penny available to the national health service is spent as it ought to be, not lost through fraud or the bureaucratic nonsense of the internal market that the previous Government introduced—

Mr. Forth

Waffle.

Mr. Dobson

There certainly is a vast amount of waffle in the national health service at the moment, and it is there because of the internal market, which is draining funds out of patient care.

Mr. Simon Hughes

Although I accept that the Secretary of State is trying to find relatively small beer in the NHS Budget, may I take him back to the central question, which not only the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) but pretty much everyone in the country is asking? Given that Labour Ministers clearly knew the score before the election as to how much the NHS was in debt, and given that all the advice he receives is that the NHS needs more money, does the Secretary of State sign up to the Cabinet policy that there will be no additional money for the NHS this year and next? Will the Budget remain for two years at the limit inherited from the Tories, or is he arguing around the Cabinet table for something different?

Mr. Dobson

For a start, it is worth reminding everybody that the NHS spends £36 billion a year—a lot of money—and some of that money could be better deployed in improving services. We are setting about that, and we are keeping all our election promises. We promised that we would have a comprehensive spending review, that we would shift funds from bureaucracy into patient care and that we would target that money initially on breast cancer treatment. We are carrying out those promises, and we will continue to meet our obligations and keep all the promises that we made.

Mrs. Brinton

Is my right hon. Friend aware that today the Peterborough Hospitals NHS trust has announced that, by March 1998, it will face a £2 million overspend and that, to avert that overspend, it will have to close a theatre and drastically reduce beds? In view of that, will he assure me that, when considering hospitals for flagshipping for the private finance initiative, Peterborough will have top priority?

Mr. Dobson

My hon. Friend draws attention to yet another Tory failure. The Tories talked and talked about getting private finance for the building of hospitals, and spent £30 million on consultants' fees, but they never got a single brick laid in any hospital. The Minister of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington (Mr. Milburn), is working on that matter. Before long, work will start on the PFI hospitals that the previous Government failed to deliver.

Mr. Jack

So far, all we have heard from the Secretary of State is waffle; we have had no straight answer to questions on the resourcing of the health service. His "savings" amount to the equivalent of one additional day's resources. On my first appearance at the Dispatch Box for Health questions, may I try to be helpful to the Secretary of State by offering him an opportunity to save some £740 million? He may be aware of the excellent work done at the Devonshire Road hospital in Blackpool on the treatment of osteoporosis. If that work were done widely in the NHS, some £740 million could be saved and 40 premature deaths a day could be prevented. On World Osteoporosis Day, may I ask him to include in his fundamental review of the health service a thorough re-examination of the way in which osteoporosis is treated in the NHS?

Mr. Dobson

It beggars belief that a former Treasury Minister can get up and belabour us for inefficiency, as he sees it, in the NHS for which we have been responsible for eight weeks after 18 years of Tory responsibility.

Mr. Jack

What about osteoporosis?

Mr. Dobson

The right hon. Gentleman has mastered the word "osteoporosis" and we all admire his efforts.

There are many areas within the NHS where we can improve the way in which money is spent, and that is one reason why we are having a fundamental comprehensive review. We will include that in the review. But I must ask the right hon. Gentleman—why did his lot not review that years ago?