§ 2.40 p.m.
§ Baroness YOUNGMy 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 on what basis the members of the Royal Commission on the National Health Service were chosen.
§ Lord WELLS-PESTELLMy Lords, in recommending appointment to the Commission, the Government proposed a membership which could look at the health service from a basis of broad knowledge and experience, and which at the same time would be reasonable in size.
§ Baroness YOUNGMy Lords, while thanking the noble Lord the Minister for that reply, may I ask him two supplementary questions? Does he not think that there were two alternatives before the Government: either to choose a Royal Commission on which there were 119 no representatives at all of the health services, in order that it could be said that outsiders were looking into the matter, or, alternatively, to choose a Royal Commission which included representatives of the health services, and all sections of the services? Secondly, would the noble Lord not agree, therefore, that it is unfortunate at a time when there has been a great deal of concern about the working of the health services that within the Royal Commission there are no representatives either of doctors in hospitals or of the hospital administration services?
§ Lord WELLS-PESTELLMy Lords, I see the point of view of the noble Baroness, Lady Young, but as 1 tried to point out, what the Government wanted to do was to get as broadly based a Commission as possible. It would not have been possible, in a committee of 16, to have brought in all the representatives of the various aspects one finds in the National Health Service. Bearing that in mind, the obvious course was to get a Commission where a number of them who are engaged in some of the vital aspects of health in this country are represented. I would also point out that people who feel that they have a contribution to make can apply to the Commission to give evidence, or can send in written evidence.
§ Lord REIGATEMy Lords, is the noble Lord the Minister aware that the largest sum spent in the Health Service is spent in the hospital? Reinforcing the point made by my noble friend Lady Young, it is particularly unfortunate that there is no one on the Commission who appears to have practical experience in actually running a hospital or group of hospitals.
§ Lord WELLS-PESTELLMy Lords, as I say, it is a choice between a number of things. The Government feel that, having regard to what the Commission is about, they have chosen people from a very broad field who will bring to it a wealth of experience and a fund of knowledge.
§ Lord SLATERMy Lords, in the course of his first reply, did my noble friend the Minister say with regard to this Commission that the policy of the Government was to see that there would be a reasonable number of people to augment it? Is one 120 to take it from the reply that the medical service is not represented at all on the Commission? Is it not correct to state that ever since the Health Service was set up, whether at regional or local level, the medical side has always been represented on the regional committees and on the management committees of hospitals in this country?
§ Lord WELLS-PESTELLMy Lords, among the members there is a professor of psychiatry and there are two general practitioners. Professor Bachelor is a practising hospital psychiatrist, and psychiatry is one of the largest hospital specialities. Professor Bachelor is a doctor of particularly wide experience, having been a member of both the Briggs Committee on Nursing and the Lane Committee on the working of the Abortion Act. Another member, Professor Bramley. is a professor of dental surgery at Sheffield University, is a practising hospital specialist in oral surgery and was previously a consultant oral surgeon in the South-West of England.
§ Baroness YOUNGMy Lords, would the noble Lord accept that I am in no sense criticising the members chosen for the Royal Commission? What I am asking is whether, at a time when there has clearly been intense disastisfaction among the medical profession with the working of the National Health Service, he really believes that by excluding two important groups of people from the membership of the Commission he will encourage people working in the National Health Service to have complete confidence in its findings?
§ Lord WELLS-PESTELLMy Lords, I see the dilemma which the noble Baroness has put, and I would hope that the composition of the Commission would not be off-putting so far as people working in the Health Service are concerned. As I said earlier, I should have thought they could make a very valuable contribution by seeking to give evidence—and there need be no limit on that—and /or by submitting written evidence of their own observations and feelings and thoughts in this matter. They could make a tremendous contribution by doing that.
§ Lord SEGALMy Lords, as there are many urgent and weighty matters awaiting 121 the recommendations of this Royal Commission, can my noble friend say when it held its first meeting and when it is anticipated it will hold its last?
§ Lord WELLS-PESTELLMy Lords, I cannot answer my noble friend in respect of either of those questions.
§ Lord SEGALMy Lords, has it not held its first meeting as yet?
§ Lord WELLS-PESTELLMy Lords, my impression is that it has held its first meeting, but I cannot give your Lordships the date.