§ Mr. Moonmanasked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will publish in the Official Report details of his current budget allocation for preventive medicine; and how far this compares as a percentage of the total National Health Service budget.
§ Mr. MoyleThe scope of preventive medicine involves a wide range of services and functions within and, indeed, outside the National Health Service, and it is not possible to isolate preventive from other elements or to provide any general estimate of preventive relative to total costs within the National Health Service budget. One of the objects of the consultative documents on "Priorities for Health and Personal Social Services in England" and on "Prevention and Health", published in 1976, was to remind Health Service authorities of the importance which my right hon. Friend and I attach to preventive medicine in the planning of priorities and allocation of resources and we have been greatly encouraged by their initial response.