NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE: STAFF ELIGIBILITY (Hansard, 11 June 1973)

§ LORD REIGATE
My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.

§ THE MINISTER OF STATE, DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND SOCIAL SECURITY (LORD ABERDARE)
Yes, my Lords in respect of initial appointment to top medical, nursing, works, financial, administrative, personnel and ambulance posts. This is in accordance with the advice of the Staff Advisory Committee, which is charged with responsibility for safeguarding the interests of the staff of the merging services. They have accepted the principle that none of those whose jobs in the existing Service will disappear on the Appointed Day should feel that he had suffered because another officer whose post was not in danger had been enabled to compete.

§ LORD REIGATE
My Lords, is my noble friend aware that that is a very disappointing Answer and that if he is going to recruit the best possible people for the reorganised National Health Service there should be no restriction on the field of appointment? Is he also aware that the views of the National Staff Commission, which the Secretary of State has powers to override, are very unfair to many outside the merging descriptions whose future is in some jeopardy?

§ LORD ABERDARE
My Lords, before accepting the Committee's advice my right 368 honourable friend asked that its effect on the staffs of the London Post-graduate Teaching Hospitals should be carefully considered. The Committee have considered these representations most carefully and have come down in favour of the principle that I have already spoken of: that much the fairest way to proceed was that only those whose jobs were in jeopardy should have the chance to apply in the first instance.

§ LORD COTTESLOE
My Lords, will my noble friend invite his right honourable friend to give special consideration to the small but important group of officers of the London Postgraduate Teaching Hospitals whose boards are to be reserved under the Bill, and who, unlike the other staffs referred to in my noble friend's Question, are precisely on all-fours with the staff affected by Clause 18 of the Bill, excepting only that their positions will not cease to exist on March 31, 1974, but on an unspecified date, probably not very long afterwards, by which time the positions for which they might apply now, if they were allowed to, will already have been filled? Is my noble friend aware also that among this small group of officers are a number who are of very high Quality and who might play a most valuable part in the reorganisation of the Service? Finally, is he aware that the Staff Commission's ruling on these officers has caused deep resentment not only among the officers themselves, but very widely in the Service, as a prime example of setting administrative convenience over the requirements of natural justice?

§ LORD ABERDARE
My Lords, I am well aware of the outstanding ability of many of those who serve the London Post-graduate Teaching Hospitals. On the other hand, I cannot possibly agree with my noble friend's last statement, that this decision has anything whatever to do with administrative convenience. It would have been most administratively convenient to include the London Post-graduate Teaching Hospitals. The fact is that we have been advised by the Staff Advisory Committee, on grounds of principle, that simply those people whose jobs will go should be allowed to compete for the new jobs in the reorganised Service. The post-graduate hospitals will remain in being, and naturally their 369 staffs will have an opportunity of applying for jobs after the reorganisation is complete.

§ BARONESS SUMMERSKILL
My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that most people who are associated with the National Health Service will agree with him that his proposals are, in the circumstances, the fairest?

§ LORD ABERDARE
My Lords, I am very glad to hear that, and I am also very glad that the noble Baroness is agreeing with me for a change.

§ BARONESS SUMMERSKILL
I thought you would be!