HC Deb 15 December 1954 vol 535 cc169-70W
Mr. M. MacMillan

asked the Secretary of State for Scotland how many surgeons, fully trained in thoracic surgery, are available in each of the Scottish Hospital Regions; what accommodation in terms of beds is available in each tuberculosis thoracic surgery centre; what is the present average waiting time for patients requiring this type of operation in each area; what is the number or estimated number of patients waiting for this operation at each regional centre; and how

TABLE
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7)
Region Number of surgical sessions per week (b) Number of surgical treatment centres Average number of beds for pre- and postoperative care (c) Waiting List (d) Respiratory tuberculosis notifications in 1953 Ratio of notifications per week to number of surgical sessions per week
Northern (a) 3 2 28 134 207 4.2
North-Eastern 185 447
Eastern 2 1 36 40 516 5.0
South Eastern 5 3 78 157 1,753 6.7
Western 20 7 234 172 4,593 4.4
Scotland 30 13 376 688 7,516 4.8
NOTES
(a) Surgical treatment for patients in the Northern Region is provided at the centres in the North-Eastern Region. One of the two is Tor-na-Dee Sanatorium, which also provides facilities for patients from all parts of Scotland in a number of surgical sessions not shown in the table.
(b) Thoracic surgeons deal with non-tuberculous as well as tuberculous conditions; and some general surgeons in the Western Region carry out tuberculosis thoracic surgery. The figures given represent the average number of operating sessions per week devoted to tuberculous conditions.
(c) In most of the centres there is no fixed allocation of beds for tuberculosis thoracic surgery patients; the number so used depends on the number of operations being performed and the requirements of pre- and post-operative care.
(d) The waiting lists in the different areas are not compiled on the same basis, since the practice of the surgeons concerned differs. The lists include patients already fit for operation and also many for whom a pre-operative period of medical treatment is required. It is not possible from the information available to give the average period of waiting for patients fit for operation.

many have elected in each region to have the operation performed as private paying patients.

Mr. J. Stuart,

pursuant to his reply [OFFICIAL REPORT, 7th December, 1954; c. 24], supplied the following information:

The following table gives the information available for each hospital region. To enable the scale of provision to be seen the table also includes (i) the number of respiratory tuberculosis notifications in 1953; and (ii) the ratio of notifications per week to the number of surgical sessions per week. Information is not available on the number of operations performed under private arrangements. A few tuberculosis thoracic surgery operations have been carried out on patients paying for services under Section 5 of the National Health Service (Scotland) Act, 1947, in the Watson-Fraser Nursing Home, Aberdeen, and in Hairmyres Hospital, Lanarkshire, but the number is very small in relation to the operations carried out otherwise.