National Health Service (Efficiency)

HC Deb 30 March 1983 vol 40 c199W

Mrs. Knight

asked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will publish an account of National Health Service expenditure, manpower and service charges in England over the past decade, and of the changes made by the Government to improve National Health Service efficiency.

Mr. Fowler

I am today publishing "Health Care and its Costs" a major review of the development and use of resources in the NHS in England over the last decade. This review is the first time any Government have accounted in public and in full for the use made by this major public service of the money they get from the taxpayer. It shows clearly the considerable advances that have been made. We have been able to make sure that the new resources which have been going steadily into the Health Service have been used to the full to provide new and improved services and respond to new demands. Hospitals alone—using fewer beds—now provide more acute diagnosis and treatment at a lower average cost.

At the same time, the review describes the pressures on the NHS from the growth in old and very old people and from medical advances; it also describes the changes this Government have made to equip the service better for the future.

Between 1978 and 1981—the latest year for which we have figures—the improvement has been marked: over 500,000 more people were coming into hospital as inpatients and day cases than three years before; over one and a half million extra outpatients and emergency cases were being treated; new medical advances—such as hip replacement and heart bypass operations—which were once unusual have become much more common; the ratios of staff to patients in mental illness and mental handicap hospitals and in hospitals for old people have continued to improve; nearly 400,000 more people were visited in their own homes by district nurses and health visitors; the numbers of family doctors giving NHS treatment have continued to rise.

In total, the review shows that, over the past few years the National Health Service has treated more patients, offered more up-to-date treatment and provided better value for money.

Copies are available for hon. Members in the Vote Office.