§ Mr. Pavittasked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will inquire into the cost-effectiveness of the expenditure by his Department of £488,000 and of regional hospital boards to the extent of £146,000 on advertising.
§ Sir K. JosephNo.
This expenditure appears to me to have given good value for money. Three-quarters of the Department's expenditure was for nursing publicity and provisional figures for March, 1971 show the largest number of hospital nursing staff (in terms of whole-time equivalents) ever recorded. A specific objective was to check the decline in the number of student nurses, and the provisional figures indicate an increase of over 300 between March, 1970 and March, 1971. The other campaign in 1970–71 from the Department's budget was to identify pensioners who were over 80. This has also been successful.
Most of the expenditure by regional hospital boards enables staff vacancies (medical, technical and some of the more senior administrative posts) to be brought to the attention of the most suitable candidates through professional journals. Boards are required by the Appointment of Consultants Regulations (Statutory Instrument No. 163/1969), to advertise all consultant posts in not less than two medical journals, and most other medical vacancies, chiefly in training posts of limited tenure, are advertised similarly. General advice on economical advertising was last given to Boards in a letter from my Department in February, 1968. Boards' expenditure on advertising, as on other things, is subject to the scrutiny of my Auditors.