§ Lord COTTESLOEMy Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government when it is expected that the rebuilding of Hammersmith Hospital, for which the plans have been completed and the preliminary "decanting" buildings set up, will be allowed to go forward.
§ Lord WELLS-PESTELLMy Lords, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Social Services has decided that for economic reasons this redevelopment cannot proceed in 1975–76. This and similar other developments are under constant review having regard to the assessment of priorities. It is not possible to say when the Hammersmith rebuilding project will go forward.
§ Lord COTTESLOEMy Lords, may I thank the Minister for that reply, which he will not expect me to accept as being anything but wholly unsatisfactory. May I ask him whether he is aware that this hospital—the only post-graduate teaching hospital in the country—has an international reputation that draws to it each year some 1,400 qualified doctors from all over the world for specialist training? Is he aware that it is still housed almost entirely in workhouse buildings more than 70 years old? Will he represent these facts to his right honourable friend as evidence of the extreme urgency with which the rebuilding should be allowed to begin so that it may be given the highest priority?
§ Lord WELLS-PESTELLMy Lords, if I may say so, there is not the slightest need for me to tell my right honourable friend what the noble Lord has said, because I know from personal knowledge that the hospital's reputation and the contribution which it has made to the health and happiness of the people is international. We are aware of this. If it was possible to proceed with the project, it would give us a great deal of pleasure. But I must be frank and say that, at the present time of financial stringency, we have to look at the Hospital Service as a whole. We have asked the regional hospital authorities and the area hospital authorities throughout the country to let us know what they can save in this field, so that a measure of priority can be given to schemes such as that in which the noble Lord is interested.
§ Lord SEGALMy Lords, is my noble friend aware that the medical research being carried on at this hospital is at least as valuable as that at any other hospital in this country, and that the conditions of working are as has already been described, best designated as primitive? Does not this famous postgraduate teaching institution deserve a far higher 881 priority than it seems to have been accorded in the reply of my noble friend?
§ Lord WELLS-PESTELLMy Lords, there are a good many hospitals where there are claims for a high measure of priority. As I say, we are aware of the importance of this hospital and the contribution it has made, but we have to look at the picture as a whole. It does not give us any pleasure at all to have to say that the project cannot proceed at present. We should like to see it proceed for a variety of reasons.
§ Lord SEGALMy Lords, does not my noble friend realise that it would be totally false economy if some of these valuable research projects were allowed to lapse and these teams of distinguished research workers were compelled to migrate to America, where far better facilities for research exist than are to be found here?
§ Lord WELLS-PESTELLMy Lords, these facts are known. But let us be perfectly frank about it; this hospital has made a tremendous advance over a period of years in a number of fields within the building about which we are now all complaining. We should like to see the hospital have better accommodation and better facilities but, as I say, we have a limited amount of money, and it has to be distributed in the best possible way.
§ Lord STAMPMy Lords, as one who has had first-hand knowledge of Hammersmith Hospital for many years, may I ask the Minister the following question? Does he know that the late Richard Cross-man, if I dare mention his name, on going through the corridors of the X-ray department said to a colleague of mine, "This is a public scandal"? It is a public scandal that existed and still exists in many parts of the hospital. Is it not also a public scandal that, economic crisis or no economic crisis, such an intolerable legacy should have been handed on from the so-called affluent society of recent years to the next generation? Turning to the point he made about priorities, can the Minister name a single hospital where, having regard to all the circumstances, including the international status of the postgraduate medical school to which reference has already been made, priorities for rebuilding, or for that matter any other medical and health service project, are greater?
§ Lord WELLS-PESTELLMy Lords, I cannot take up the time of your Lordships' House in Question Time to answer that fully, except to say this. There are a number of areas where the hospital facilities need considerable improvement. London as a whole is not too badly served, and I think there are many in your Lordships' House who wish there were other areas of the country served as well.
§ Lord COLERAINEMy Lords, may I ask the noble Lord whether he would admit that there is no hospital in the country which combines the internationally high reputation of the postgraduate medical school and the slum conditions in which that work has to be carried out? Do not these two factors in combination give Hammersmith Hospital a claim which no other hospital in the country has?
§ Lord WELLS-PESTELLMy Lords, I do not think we would dispute that. All I am saying is that, so far as the present financial year is concerned, we cannot do anything to proceed with the development that we should all like to see at the Hammersmith Hospital.
§ Lord COTTESLOEMy Lords, would the Minister bear in mind, when he is considering this matter, that Hammersmith is dealing with 130,000 outpatients a year in accommodation that was built many years ago to handle 20,000, and that it is dealing in the radio-diagnostic department with 50,000 patients a year in accommodation that was built to handle 12,000? Those are the kind of figures that should be borne in mind.
§ Lord WELLS-PESTELLMy Lords, we are aware of that fact. I should like to take this opportunity of saying that not only the Department and the Government but everyone who knows of the achievements of the hospital would want to offer congratulations to the hospital and its staff for what they have achieved under such circumstances.
§ Lord BROCKWAYMy Lords, may I ask the Minister, in view of the quite extraordinary achievements of Hammersmith Hospital—with regard to heart, arteries, kidneys, and now cancer—and its contribution towards Commonwealth 883 students, whether Her Majesty's Government will consider making this additional help available as soon as possible?
§ Lord WELLS-PESTELLMy Lords, the answer to my noble friend is that we will but it will not be in the current financial year.
Viscount ST. DAVIDSMy Lords, can the noble Lord tell us how much longer this hospital has to stand before it ranks for preservation under the heading of industrial archeology?