§ Mr. Alfred Morrisasked the Secretary of Slate for Social Services if he will make a statement on the progress in devising new funding arrangements for supra-regional health services.
§ Mr. Kenneth ClarkeIn 1983–84 we intend to introduce arrangements by which the financial allocations to certain important services which need to be planned on a national rather than a regional scale will be determined centrally and identified separately from the normal allocations of the health authorities concerned. As part of these arrangements we intend to establish a forum, comprising representatives of health authorities and the medical profession, to advise us on the claims of particular services for supra-regional funding and the level of funding they should receive. The new arrangements would begin with four services which have already been recognised, following consultation in 1979 between the Department and the medical profession, as falling into the supra-regional category. These are paediatric renal dialysis and transplantation, spinal services, the management of chorioncarcinoma and the national poisons information service. Any proposals for extending the arrangements to other services performing a supra-regional function would be referred initially to the advisory forum. The first additional service which I will ask the forum to consider will be bone marrow transplantation, in the light of the recent report on this subject by the working party under the chairmanship of Sir Douglas Black.
The principle of these new arrangements has now been agreed with regional health authorities, and our proposals are to be discussed with the medical profession at a meeting between the Department and the joint consultants committee later this month.