HL Deb 08 May 2000 vol 612 cc1193-5

2.48 p.m.

Lord Feldman

asked Her Majesty's Government:

When they expect to meet their National Health Service waiting list targets.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Lord Hunt of Kings Heath)

My Lords, we are well on course to achieve the 100,000 reduction promised by the end of this Parliament. The latest data (for end February 2000) show that the number of patients on National Health Service waiting lists is now 70,000 below the level inherited.

Lord Feldman

My Lords, I am glad that the figures are near to hand. However, the 70,000 figure relates to three to four months ago. I should have thought that after 27,000 hours of work the early pledge of a 100,000 reduction would have been better achieved. Have the figures for the waiting list for the waiting list improved? These have doubled in the past three years. I heard the Leader of the House—

Noble Lords

Question!

Lord Feldman

My Lords, I am coming to the question. I heard the Leader of the House comment that the NHS waiting list target was a blip. As a blip is a minor error or deviation, will the Minister agree that the figure was more of a flop than a blip?

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath

No, my Lords; winter pressures had an impact on the waiting list figures, but we expected that. We made the pledge to reduce the figure by 100,000 during the lifetime of this Parliament. We are well on course to do that. Far from the figure being a blip, it demonstrates a consistent approach to tackling waiting lists over our three years in office.

Lord Clement-Jones

My Lords, after three years it is clear that the Government's concentration on inpatient waiting lists has had the knock-on effect of a severe deterioration in out-patient waiting times. Those have doubled since the general election. Will the Government now abandon these pointless targets; or do they propose to ask Sir Richard Branson to deal with the matter?

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath

My Lords, the noble Lord is wrong in his analysis. Of course we have to tackle out-patient waiting lists with the same determination as we tackle in-patient waiting lists. In the financial year between 1996–97 and 1998–99 the number of out-patients treated rose from 10,248,000 to 10,646,000. At the same time as making considerable inroads into the in-patient waiting lists, we have treated hundreds of thousands of addition al patients. That is a measure of our success.

Lord Pilkington of Oxenford

My Lords, will the Minister assure us that there is no sense in which the number of more difficult cases on the waiting list has been reduced in order to deal with the easier cases? Can he stand at the Dispatch Box and tell us that there is no sense in which that has occurred?

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath

My Lords, the position is clear. In the NHS, emergency cases are always treated first. Urgent treatments are always given priority, but, ultimately, matters rest on the individual clinical decisions of individual doctors.

Earl Howe

My Lords, does not the Minister agree that waiting times, not the number of people wailing, is the better measure of the ability of the NHS to cope with the demands placed on it? Furthermore, is it not the case that since the Government took office the number of patients waiting for more than a year to see a consultant has risen from 30,100 to 51,900?

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath

My Lords, if you tackle waiting lists, you tackle waiting times. I remind the noble Earl that, under the Patient's Charter, his party pledged to end waits of longer than 18 months. His government failed to succeed in that pledge. This Government are determined to tackle waiting lists and to speed up treatment for all patients. It is a key indicator in our modernisation of the health service.

Baroness Carnegy of Lour

My Lords, when the Government stop telling themselves that they are doing so much better than the previous government and think about the present and the future, are they satisfied with the figures which my noble friend Lord Howe has given? Can the Minister say whether they are correct and whether the Government are satisfied with them?

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath

My Lords, as a result of the deficits and pressures on the health service when we came to office, there was at the beginning of our term, as the noble Earl suggested, an increase in the number of patients waiting for treatment. However, in the actions that the Government have taken, a determined effort has been made to reduce that. Therefore, we are very much on course to meet the target that we pledged at the last election.