Brain Scans (Hansard, 19 October 1999)

§ 1. Miss Anne McIntosh (Vale of York)
What is the (a) length of the waiting list and (b) average waiting time for a brain scan for those aged (i) under 18 years and (ii) 18 years and over; and if he will make a statement. [92584]

§ The Secretary of State for Health (Mr. Alan Milburn)
Brain scans are diagnostic procedures carried out in radiology departments. During the quarter ended June 1999, the average waiting time for a radiology out-patient appointment was two weeks.

§ Miss McIntosh
I congratulate the Secretary of State for Health on his appointment, and welcome him to the 236 Dispatch Box in that capacity. Is he familiar with the tragic case of Shaun Johnstone, aged 16, of Boroughbridge, who was not given a brain scan within two weeks but was asked to wait two months? Perhaps that reflects on the present obsession with the distortion of waiting lists in the health service, with, in that case, tragic consequences. The father is especially concerned to raise the question of confidentiality, as neither the patient, who was 16 and therefore no longer a minor, nor the father, was told of the diagnosis, which could not be confirmed before the boy died. Will the Secretary of State make a ruling on that case?

§ Mr. Milburn
I am aware of the case of Shaun Johnstone, and I am sure that the whole House will join me in passing on our condolences to the family. The case was especially sad, not least because it is extremely unusual for a young person of Shaun's age to have a cerebral tumour. I understand, however, that both Shaun's general practitioner and the consultant neurologist who dealt with the case believe that even if Shaun had attended his first out-patient appointment, which I understand he was unable to do, he was suffering from an inoperable tumour, so treatment would have made no significant difference. I know, however, that that is of little comfort to Shaun's parents, other relatives and friends.
Of course I shall gladly look into the case. I understand that the health authority has already done so, and the parents have been advised that the most appropriate course of action would be to approach the health service commissioner. I strongly advise them to do that, but I will still look into the case.
The general point that the hon. Lady made is wrong. We are bringing waiting lists down for in-patients, and we will continue to do so, but there is now a change of tack. We are ensuring, in particular, that there will be faster and more convenient care across the piece in the national health service. We will begin with the core priority areas of cancer and heart disease. It is important to improve those services; we have already set in place a two-week standard for patients referred with suspected breast cancer, and I want to improve on that.

§ Mr. Nick Harvey (North Devon)
I too congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on his appointment. As some people are waiting for brain scans for as long as nine weeks in Oxford and 16 weeks in Birmingham—as he has acknowledged, none of those waits shows up on the Government's much vaunted waiting lists measure—and as yesterday he seemed to be reorienting his priorities for the health service, will he follow the example of the new Scottish Administration and recognise that measuring waiting lists is not the right thing to do? Will he put the emphasis on waiting times instead? Surely what is of concern to patients is how long they have to wait for the totality of their treatment, not how many people have the misfortune to be in the same boat.

§ Mr. Milburn
I welcome the hon. Gentleman to his new post, too. We have made it clear from the outset that it will take some time to get waiting lists down. They are coming down and they will continue to come down. The drive on waiting lists will be unrelenting. They are now about 70,000 lower than those that we inherited from the previous Government, when numbers were rising at a record rate. That has taken some time to get right. 237 We shall continue to get waiting lists down, and by the end of this Parliament we will have fulfilled the pledge that we gave to the people at the general election. The difference between the Labour party and the Conservative party is that we keep our election promises rather than break them. However, we have also made it clear that reducing waiting lists is just the start. We want to modernise each and every aspect of NHS treatment and care, so that patients everywhere get the fast and convenient services that they want.

§ Dr. Nick Palmer (Broxtowe)
I, too, welcome my right hon. Friend to his new position. Those of us who have campaigned on health issues over the past couple of years have been impressed by the clear sense of priorities of many people both inside and outside the national health service. Before the election, the main worry was the enormous explosion in in-patient waiting lists, which was getting out of control and discrediting the health service. I also welcome the fact that the health service is now—

§ Madam Speaker
Order. As the hon. Gentleman knows, this is Question Time. Would he move on rapidly and ask the question directly? It should relate to waiting times for brain scans.

§ Dr. Palmer
I want to ask the Secretary of State this question. Will the priority that he is giving to heart disease and cancer treatment improve waiting times and waiting lists in those areas, as that will reflect the priorities of ordinary people?

§ Mr. Milburn
My hon. Friend is right. There has always been a connection between reductions in waiting lists and waiting times. As we get waiting lists down, so waiting times will come down. We can now guarantee—the Opposition were never able to do this when they were in government—that patients will wait no longer than 18 months for treatment. During the past year, we have reduced the number of people waiting more than 12 months for treatment by a third. There is obviously a long way to go, but patients want fast and convenient care and they know that they will get that from the Labour Government.

§ Dr. Liam Fox (Woodspring)
I welcome the Secretary of State to his post. These days it is nice to see Ministers who are willing to come along and defend their positions. What my hon. Friend the Member for Vale of York (Miss McIntosh) says is true: this initiative is an example of distorted clinical priorities in the health service. The Secretary of State is new to the job. Does he accept that patients care not how many people are behind or in front of them in the list, but how long they and their families will have to wait for treatment? Will he abandon the waiting list initiative, which is reducing the NHS to a shambles, with extraordinarily distorted clinical priorities?

§ Mr. Milburn
No, I will not do that for two reasons. First, when politicians, whether in opposition or in government, make promises at general elections, they should keep them. We intend to keep our promise that, by the end of this Parliament, the number of people on waiting lists will be 100,000 lower than we inherited. Secondly, we are taking this initiative because it is the right thing to do. As waiting lists come down, so will 238 waiting times. That is happening already, and in the core priority areas of cancer and heart disease we are now setting in train action that will ensure that patients are seen in a timely fashion. That is what patients and staff in the national health service want.

§ Dr. Fox
Under this Government, getting on to the waiting list is an achievement in itself. An extra 190,000 patients have been waiting to get on to the waiting list since Labour came to power, and that does not take into account the fiddling of the figures that seems to take place daily.
The British Medical Association, the Royal College of Surgeons, the Royal College of Nursing and just about every medical and nursing body in the country say that the waiting list initiative distorts clinical priorities and keeps the sickest patients waiting longer than necessary, because minor cases are treated earlier in order to get the figures down to suit Ministers. Why does the Minister not realise that? Is it because this is about the Prime Minister's ego and not the running of the health service? The Secretary of State knows that this policy is flawed, that it is the wrong way to run the national health service and that it is bad for patients, but that it is the Prime Minister's second political prisoner.

§ Mr. Milburn
It is a bit rich for the Conservatives to give lectures about fiddling figures, given that they spent 18 years fiddling figures. They fiddled the employment figures not once, not twice, but more than 30 times. They tortured the statistics until they confessed.
If the hon. Gentleman had bothered to listen to what heart surgeons, heart specialists and the royal colleges had to say yesterday, he would have learned that they welcome the direction that we are now taking in the national health service to modernise and speed up all aspects of care.