§ Mr. Arthur Lewisasked the Secretary of State for Social Services whether he will publish in the OFFICIAL REPORT a chronological sequence of time and dates when his Department were first requested to have in inquiry into the alleged ill-treatment of patients at South Ockendon Hospital; why, in the case of the spastic son of a West Ham storekeeper, details of which have been supplied to him, it has taken seven years for this investigation to be made; and whether he will make a statement.
§ Sir K. JosephAll such complaints made to my Department have been looked into through normal administrative channels. I believe that my predecessor sent the hon. Member in 1969 a full reply on the complaints about the individual case he mentions. I cannot accept the apparent implication in the Question that a formal inquiry should be the standard procedure for investigating such complaints. The present committee of inquiry was set up by me after the hospital management committee had requested that complaints which it had started to investigate should be referred to a wider inquiry.