HC Deb 08 February 1940 vol 357 cc410-1W
Mr Jenkins

asked the Minister of Health whether members of His Majesty's Forces who are found to be suffering from tuberculosis, and, are sent for treatment to institutions under the control of the Welsh Memorial Association, will be paid for by the Government?

Mr. Elliot

The question whether the Government are liable for the cost of treatment depends on the regulations governing the case and is not dependent on the institution to which the individual is sent. If a Service patient for whose treatment the Government are responsible is sent to an institution of the Welsh National Memorial Association, payment will be made accordingly.

Mr. Jenkins

asked the Minister of Health whether evacuees, official and unofficial, who are suffering from tuberculosis and are given institutional treatment by the Welsh Memorial Association will be chargeable to that authority or will the cost be levied against the authority from whose areas the patients have been evacuated?

Mr. Elliot

The cost of such treatment will fall upon the authorities in whose areas the patients ordinarily reside in cases in which mutually agreed arrangements to that effect exist between those authorities and the Welsh National Memorial Association. In other cases the cost will fall to be borne by the Welsh National Memorial Association, subject to the provision that the approved net additional cost incurred by the association in respect of persons evacuated under the Government scheme will be met from Government funds.

Mr. Jenkins

asked the Minister of Health whether he is aware that at a meeting of the Welsh Memorial Association, held recently, it was officially stated that there are at present in Wales 800 persons suffering from tuberculosis who are urgently in need of institutional treatment and that there is a potential waiting list of 3,000; whether he proposes to take any immediate action to deal with that situation; and, if so, what action?

Mr. Elliot

I understand that there are at present some 225 patients awaiting admission to residential institutions of the Welsh National Memorial Association and that, in addition, there are about 500 patents who were discharged or took their own discharge from the association's institutions on account of the emergency, who have not returned for the purpose of completing treatment. I am aware of the estimate approximating to 3,000 as a potential number of cases of tuberculosis in Wales who ought to be under residential treatment, mentioned in the report of the committee of inquiry into the Anti-tuberculosis Service in Wales, but this estimate has no necessary relation to the effective demand for beds.

As regards the last two parts of the Question, I have, as the hon. Member knows, put in hand the construction of additional hospital accommodation in hutments at Denbigh and Chepstow. These hutted. hospitals will comprise 960 beds and will be completed this year. I hope that the 360 beds at Denbigh will be available for the treatment of tuberculous patients from April onwards.