§ Mr. Orbachasked the Secretary of State for Social Services what plans he has to increase expenditure on the health and personal social services.
§ Mr. Ennals:The plans announced in the White Paper (Cmnd. 7439) published today provide for expenditure on the National Health Service in Great Britain in 1979–80 to be increased by about £100 million over and above the levels set out in the previous expenditure White Paper (Cmnd. 7049). Of this E80 million is an addition to planned expenditure on hospital and community health services, about half of which will go on continuing the initiatives brought forward by last April's special injection of funds, and the other half on further improvements. Most of the remaining £20 million will go to the family practitioner services. With the growth already planned, this means that spending on the NHS in 1979–80 will be £143 million more than was allocated for 1978–79. And taking account of the planned rise of £30 million in spending on the personal social services, the total of planned expenditure on the health and personal social services budget is £173 million more in 1979–80 than in 1978–79.
As with other public expenditure programmes, the NHS is still on a tight financial rein. But this increase is another step in the Government's policy of putting more funds into health and social services as the economic position allows. We shall be sticking to the priorities already agreed and within this will be encouraging some specific initiatives including a vigorous campaign to cut perinatal mortalility, improved services for the growing number of elderly people, higher standards of care for children in mental handicap hospitals, more hearing aids for children and adults and more nurse training.
I shall shortly be making further announcements on these initiatives and on cash allocations to health authorities in England where we will make progress in line with our policy of fairer shares across the country.
775WThe White Paper also shows provisional plans for the years beyond 1979–80, in which additions have also been made to the plans set out in Cmnd. 7049. Spending on health and social services is planned to rise nearly 2 per cent. a year on average and by 1982–83 will be some £640 million higher in real terms than in 1978–79.