§ 8. Mr. Michael Clapham (Barnsley, West and Penistone)What progress has been made on tackling health inequalities. [19662]
§ The Secretary of State for Health (Mr. Alan Milburn)Good progress has been made, not least by targeting resources on the areas of greatest health need.
§ Mr. ClaphamI thank the Secretary of State for his reply, but may I draw his attention to the Government's chief medical officer's report this year, which states that, although progress has been made in health overall, there are growing gaps in health between socially disadvantaged groups and more affluent groups. When does he expect the primary care trusts to have completed their equity reports in relation to targeting inequalities? As he well knows, we in Barnsley have just one PCT, which has now been put together and is continuing its work. When the equity audit is complete, will we have more resources to deal with some of our inequalities?
§ Mr. MilburnMy hon. Friend raises an extremely important issue. For many decades, health inequalities in this country have been widening, rather than narrowing. Indeed, the chief medical officer's report, which was published yesterday, makes that glaringly obvious. There is a big commitment to deal with those problems. Obviously, they are not straightforward because we are 708 dealing with some of the wider economic and social determinants of ill health, as well as ill health itself, but it is important to get the resources into the right place, as I said in an earlier answer. My hon. Friend will be aware from the announcement that I made last Thursday that, in the next financial year, we will invest about £150 million-worth of extra resources, specifically to recognise the greater demands that are made on health services in poorer parts of the country, such as his constituency, where we will invest, I think, an extra £2 million.
The primary care trusts will have an important role to play in that regard, and the fact that the resources and responsibilities are being devolved down to very local communities, with the PCTs in charge, will help to foster better partnerships between local government, the voluntary sector, the private sector and the NHS, not just to provide better health and social care services, but to deal with some of the root causes of ill health, of which my hon. Friend and other hon. Members are painfully aware.
§ Mr. John Redwood (Wokingham)Does the Secretary of State agree that one of the big inequalities is the fact that people in constituencies such as mine have to wait far too long for the routine operations that they need to get out of pain, unlike in some other parts of the country? What would he say to my constituent Mr. Levy, who read in the paper that the Government had lost a court case and that he could now go abroad and get his operation charged to the health service? He then read a couple of statements, purporting to come from the Secretary of State, saying that he is launching a policy to allow people to go abroad to get their operations done more quickly to get out of pain, only for me to receive from two junior Ministers in the Department of Health a strong no to my constituent, saying that there was no way that he was allowed to have his operation done elsewhere to get out of pain and that this was all a tissue of lies. What has the Secretary of State got to say about that?
§ Mr. MilburnA tissue of lies it is not, but the right hon. Gentleman, or indeed any other right hon. or hon. Member, would not forgive us if we got the policy wrong with regard to offering patients the choice of being treated abroad. That has not been the case under Conservative or Labour Governments, but it is what we are advancing towards, and we will ensure that we get it right. There are obvious concerns about travel arrangements, clinical standards and ensuring that patients are fit to travel, but that is precisely what we are trying to do in three parts of the country, including the south-east—precisely the area about which the right hon. Gentleman expresses concern—and I hope that we can make progress before too long.
As the right hon. Gentleman rightly says, it is also important that, as we expand the NHS, we also extend choice to more patients. He will be aware that I was able to say last week that that is precisely what we want to do, starting with those patients who have the most severe clinical conditions. I cannot think of anyone who faces a greater dilemma than the heart patient who has the choice between paying for treatment or waiting for treatment. We want to solve that dilemma not by forcing people out of the NHS, as the Conservative party increasingly seeks to do, but by offering them choice in the NHS.