HC Deb 21 February 1956 vol 549 cc20-1W
Sir I. Clark Hutchison

asked the Secretary of State for Scotland to make a statement on the future programme of mass radiography surveys for the detection of tuberculosis in Scotland.

Mr. J. Stuart

Plans are now being made for a new series of community surveys by mass radiography, more intensive and on a much larger scale than hitherto, as part of a two-year campaign to combat respiratory tuberculosis in Scotland. I am inviting the Corporation of Glasgow to conduct a city-wide survey as the opening stage of this campaign, and with the assistance of my right hon. Friends the Minister of Health and the Secretary of State for Air I am hoping to make available for this purpose, in addition to the ten mass radiography units normally at our disposal, about twenty more on loan from England and Wales for a period of five weeks.

We shall seek to enlist the aid of voluntary effort of all kinds, and a great deal of preparation will be needed. Accordingly, the date proposed for the Glasgow survey is March, 1957. The local authorities of the other three Scottish cities and of many areas in the industrial belt will be offered facilities to arrange similar surveys at subsequent stages of the campaign, and I hope that well over a million examinations by mass radiography will be carried out during the two-year period. The surveys planned for 1956, of which I gave details in reply to my hon. Friend on 13th December last, will of course proceed.