§ 2.21 p.m.
§ Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
THE EARL OF ONSLOWMy Lords, the purpose of this Bill is to transfer the Royal Naval Hospital at Great Yarmouth, which is a mental hospital, from the Admiralty to the Minister of Health and to make it part of the National Health Service. It might be as well, before I explain the reasons for this proposal, to give your Lordships a short history of the Hospital and the patients who 840 are in it and who have been in it. The Hospital was built in 1811 for wounded in the Navy in the war with France. Its present use—as a mental hospital run by the Admiralty—began in 1863. It is at present administered under the Yarmouth Naval Hospital Act, 1931, which defined the classes of patient who might be admitted. These were Naval and Royal Marine patients; civilians who were ex-Navy or ex-Royal Marine with certain specific qualifications laid down by the Act; and persons the cost of whose maintenance was wholly or partly met by the Ministry of Pensions.
The Hospital has 236 beds. There are at present no Naval or Royal Marine patients in it. There are 28 ex-Naval patients and 123 for whom the Ministry of Health, as successors of the Ministry of Pensions have responsibility. These are pensioners from war injuries of the three Services plus civilians. Eighty-five beds are at present unoccupied and cannot be used because there are no suitable patients seeking admission who satisfy the qualifications of the 1931 Act. Apart from serving medical officers, the staff of the Hospital are civil servants. There are seventy-seven of these, of whom fifty-eight are established civil servants.
The Act of 1931 also dealt with the certification and detention of patients at the hospital. Patients detained under it comprise patients detained upon an order made by the Admiralty founded upon two medical certificates; patients detained upon an order by the Admiralty taking effect upon their discharge from detention in an institution for persons of unsound mind in England. Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland; and patients who were detained in the hospital before 1931 and who, by the Act of 1931, are deemed to be detained there under an order made by the Admiralty. At present the only method of securing discharge is by appeal to the Admiralty. The Royal Commission on the Laws Relating to Mental Health and Mental Deficiency criticised these arrangements which are out of line with current practice.
I will now briefly explain to your Lordships the content of this Bill. Clause 1 provides for the transfer of the hospital to the Minister of Health on a date to be appointed by order. If the Bill meets with the approval of Parliament and is 841 enacted in time, it is hoped to effect this on April 1 next, the beginning of the financial year being a convenient date for all concerned. It is intended that the hospital shall be administered by one of the existing hospital management committees appointed under the National Health Service Act by the East Anglian Regional Hospital Board. The effect of Clause 2 is that patients who are lawfully detained under the 1931 Act at the appointed day will continue to be detained as if they had been admitted to the hospital under the ordinary law relating to certification and detention of mental patients. Thereafter they will be in the same position as patients in other mental hospitals. Voluntary patients will be able to remain without fresh application. It is proposed to repeal the Act of 1931.
The reasons for these proposals are as follows. First, I would point out to your Lordships that the hospital is only partly used, while there is great need for beds for mental patients in the region, other hospitals being very overcrowded. As part of the National Health Service the hospital will be better used, and some relief will be afforded to other hospitals. I am sure that your Lordships will welcome the small but very welcome contribution which this hospital can make to a situation we are all anxious to relieve. Secondly, the arrangements for the certification, detention and discharge of patients will be brought into line with current practice and the unusual procedures which were criticised by the Royal Commission will cease. Thirdly, these provisions will enable the hospital to become an integral part of the National Health Service, with closer links with the mental health service than in the past. It is somewhat incongruous that the Admiralty should now be running a mental hospital—and a mental hospital in which all the: patients are civilians—when there is a National Health Service more appropriately fitted for the task.
Finally, the Bill will clear up a financial anomaly. Although the financial responsibility for a large number of the patients now rests with the Minister of Health, the Admiralty Vote is bearing the full cost of running the hospital, since there is no cross-accounting between the Departments. This Bill will transfer the financial responsibility to the National Health Service Vote where it more appropriately belongs. I can assure your 842 Lordships that there is no intention to remove patients from the hospital and that every effort will continue to be made to admit any ex-Naval or pensioner patients whose relatives express a wish that they should go there rather than to other hospitals.
I would finish by saying something quite briefly about the arrangements for the staff. The serving medical officers will be transferred by the Admiralty to another station. They are Naval officers. The rest are civil servants and there is no provision in the Bill to transfer them compulsorily with the hospital. All will be offered continued employment with the Regional Hospital Board and I hope that all will wish to stay. If any do not, the Admiralty will endeavour to find them employment elsewhere, and if employment cannot be found they will be entitled to the normal abolition of office terms for civil servants.
Most of the staff are established civil servants. If they stay at the hospital they will be allowed to retain their present terms and conditions of service or, if they prefer, they may transfer to National Health Service terms. The temporary staff will also be offered appointments on National Health Service terms. My right honourable friend the Minister of Health proposes in due course to lay regulations before Parliament which will provide for the superannuation of all staff and will enable those who are not at present covered by the National Health Service Superannuation scheme to choose whether to come under it or to remain under the Civil Service scheme. Representatives of the Admiralty and of the Regional Hospital Board will be meeting representatives of the staff on December 6 to explain how these options will work and to give all possible help to any who feel in difficulty. I think your Lordships will agree with me that this is a sound and sensible proposal. I beg to move, therefore, that this Bill be now read a second time.
§ Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(The Earl of Onslow.)
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLS-BOROUGHMy Lords, I am obliged to the noble Earl for the careful explanation he has given of the provisions of the Bill. From my knowledge of the hospital concerned—it is 147 years old—I do not think that the Admiralty need be too 843 seriously disturbed at its loss. The change will perhaps remove a convenient place of residence for the Flag Officer during a war period—we had to have a Flag Officer there during the last war—but on the whole this is a sound and sensible proposal and I hope that it will go through quickly.
§ On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.