HC Deb 28 April 1998 vol 311 cc133-5
7. Mr. Derek Twigg (Halton)

When the first national survey of patients and user experience will be carried out in the NHS. [38677]

12. Mr. Dennis Turner (Wolverhampton, South-East)

When the first national survey of patients and user experience will be carried out in the NHS. [38685]

The Secretary of State for Health

The first national survey of the experience of NHS patients, users and carers will be carried out later this year.

Mr. Twigg

Is not the best way of getting patients and staff more involved in an organisation to give them a voice in it? Is it not especially important, given the massive injection of resources that the Government have put into the health service recently, to give people that say and ensure that the money is spent correctly? North Cheshire has already been allocated £6 million for 1998–99, with an extra £1.9 million to reduce waiting lists, which was described by the chief executive of North Cheshire health authority as

a huge sum of money".

Mr. Dobson

I certainly welcome any such statements. We certainly need to listen to the people who work in the national health service, which is why I made it my business recently to write to every single person working in the service to ask for comments on the service generally and on local matters.

We are also determined to carry out straightforward surveys of the experience of patients, users and carers; that has never been done before, and it will be the first example of a Government listening to what the people who use the service have to say. Up to now, any assessment has depended on odd random surveys or anecdotal evidence; some of that may be perfectly valid, but we want to find out systematically what people think about the services that they are getting.

Mr. Turner

Is this not an excellent and fitting way in which to celebrate the 50th anniversary of our national health service, created by a Labour Government? Will not a new, dependable, modernised health service be created by this new Labour Government to take us into the next 50 years?

Mr. Dobson

I endorse everything that my hon. Friend has said. It is always worth repeating for the record that the Tory party voted against the establishment of the national health service. People need reminding of that from time to time.

A genuine survey of patient opinion will confirm what polls conducted by the commercial pollsters show: if asked what they think about the national health service generally, people say that it is pretty good; but if asked about the service that they and their family got, they think that it is brilliant. It is necessary to emphasise the extent to which people who use the national health service are satisfied with the treatment that they receive.

Mr. Simon Hughes (Southwark, North and Bermondsey)

After the rough ride that the Secretary of State got at the Royal College of Nursing congress last week—

Mr. Milburn

Were you there?

Mr. Hughes

No, but I was there the next day.

Does the Secretary of State agree that we do not need a national survey of user and patient experience to confirm that, a year on from Labour's general election victory, community hospitals are closing or threatened with closure; a quarter of trusts and authorities project deficits; there are more than 10,000 vacancies in the NHS; and waiting lists are up 100,000 instead of down 100,000? Is the right hon. Gentleman telling us that that is saving the NHS? Is not the truth that, a year on, the NHS is far from safe in the Labour Government's hands?

Mr. Dobson

All I can say in response to the hon. Gentleman's usual whingeing, moaning contribution is that the figures announced today show that the health authorities serving seats represented by Liberal Democrat Members are getting an extra £73 million to help to deal with waiting lists. People—I refer not to constituents but to the whingeing, moaning Liberal Members of Parliament who purport to represent them—should show some gratitude.

Dr. Julian Lewis (New Forest, East)

Will the survey of user experience include women raped on mixed wards in acute psychiatric units? Will the Minister explain why new units with mixed wards are still being built in London, despite the opposition of a range of mental health charities? Is it not disgraceful that last Friday the Government again blocked the Mental Health (Amendment) (No. 2) Bill, which would prevent users unfortunate enough to go into an acute psychiatric unit from having such horrifying experiences?

Mr. Dobson

It is news to me if new mixed wards are being opened. If they are, I will put a stop to it.

Audrey Wise (Preston)

I welcome my right hon. Friend's last remarks, and the national survey. Does he none the less agree that, although such national surveys are extremely useful and welcome, they cannot replace certain pilot schemes that enable deeper evaluation to be made of some treatments? Does he accept that a number of such schemes have been conducted in maternity services? Will he make sure that, having received good evaluation, including favourable responses from users, health authorities and trusts will listen to the results of those evaluations?

Mr. Dobson

What we propose is intended to supplement the current evaluations and pilot schemes. The object of the exercise—pilot schemes and evaluations as well as the national survey of opinion—is simply to identify the things that are right and ought to be encouraged and the things that are wrong and should be discouraged, and in that way to improve the performance of the health service. That is what everyone in the country wants, and all the 1 million people working in the health service want.

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