HC Deb 04 July 2000 vol 353 cc153-5
10. Mrs. Ann Cryer (Keighley)

If he will make a statement on the number of cataract operations carried out on the NHS in the last year. [127519]

The Secretary of State for Health (Mr. Alan Milburn)

In the last year for which figures are available, there were just over 200,000 finished consultant episodes relating to cataract treatments. The £20 million that we are investing in our action on cataracts programme will ensure more efficient services and will increase the number of operations performed to 250,000 over the next few years. The programme will also ensure that we get waiting times down for cataract treatment.

Mrs. Cryer

I thank my right hon. Friend for his helpful announcement. What impact will those plans have on the situation of my Ilkley constituent, who will have her first out-patient appointment on 25 October, by which time she will have been waiting 16 months; and then, of course, she will have to go on the waiting list for her operation for cataracts? In the early 1990s, I had four elderly relatives suffering from cataracts. All of them had to withdraw their savings in order to pay for an initial appointment. Will my right hon. Friend comment on that?

Mr. Milburn

My hon. Friend is right—waiting times are too long at present. That is why we want to get them down. With regard to action in her area, I understand that Bradford health authority is to introduce a new programme of work over the next few months precisely in order to get the waiting times down for cataract operations. It is partly a matter of investing more cash, and that is what we are doing, and hopefully also employing more staff. It is also a matter of redesigning the way in which the system works.

In my hon. Friend's health authority area, for example, I understand that a new system will shortly be introduced whereby patients can be referred direct from the optometrist to a hospital waiting list, rather than having to go through the push me-pull me system, backwards and forwards between the optician, the GP, the out-patients department, back to the GP and so on. The delay is almost designed into the system, and we must change that. By streamlining the system and getting more staff and more money in, we can get the waiting times down for treatment. The idea is that through the 60 schemes that we have introduced to take action on cataract waiting times, at the end of the next few years the waiting time for treatment will be down to six months.

Mr. Edward Leigh (Gainsborough)

I congratulate the Secretary of State on his announcement on 30 June that an extra £20 million is being made available for cataract services. The only slight problem was that that announcement was first made in February; it was a re-announcement. Is the fact that the Government are prepared to acknowledge that it was a re-announcement proof that at last they are waking up to what was said in the leaked report yesterday by the Minister's colleagues that enormous damage is being done to confidence in the health service by the constant announcement and then re-announcement of money available to the service?

Mr. Milburn

As a matter of fact, the hon. Gentleman, who is nearly right, is actually wrong on this issue, as so often. What I announced on 30 June were the areas where the £20 million would be invested. They included the area represented by my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Mrs. Cryer). There will be 60 local schemes. Many parts of the country will benefit. People will draw the clearest of contrasts between the policy of the current Government, designed to get waiting times down for all conditions, and the Conservatives' policy, which is to force people to take out private health insurance for treatment such as cataract operations, hip and knee replacements and so on.

I remind the hon. Gentleman, should he need reminding, of what the hon. Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox) told The Sunday Times on 16 January. [Interruption.] These are the hon. Gentleman's words, not mine. I shall gladly circulate a copy to all hon. Members on the Opposition Back Benches if they would like to see what the hon. Gentleman said, because he obviously fancies himself as the next leader of the Conservative party and this is to be part of his manifesto. What he said on 16 January was: Philosophically we have moved on. Insurance companies could cover conditions that are not hi-tech or expensive, like hip and knee replacements and hernia and cataract operations. There is a very simple choice between this party, determined to get waiting times down and to keep NHS treatment free, and the party opposite, determined to lengthen waiting times and force people to pay for their care.