§ Mr. Carter-Jonesasked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he is satisfied with the arrangement for 193W the provision of clothing by health authorities for young disabled people in their care; if he will amend the supplementary benefit regulations to give such people entitlement to single payments for clothing whether or not the pocket money allowance they receive is from supplementary benefit or a national insurance benefit; and if he will make a statement.
§ Dr. BoysonHealth authorities do not have a general duty to clothe patients resident in hospital or other NHS accommodation—including young disabled people—but there is a particular duty on them to clothe any patients who cannot supply their own clothes and where such clothing is not available from any other source, such as relatives or voluntary organisations. Long-standing advice to the NHS has been that patients should be encouraged to purchase and wear their own clothes, but that those patients unable to buy their own should have a range of clothes provided on a personal basis by the health authority. In considering whether a particular patient can afford to buy his or her own clothes, the health authority is expected to disregard income from benefits paid at the reduced rate for long-stay residents. There is, therefore, no reason for changing the supplementary benefit regulations so as to give hospital inpatients a special entitlement to single payments for clothing.