§ Mr. Woodasked the Secretary of State for Social Services what plans health authorities have for developing services to patients in the coming year.
§ Mr. FowlerAs part of our arrangements for management of the National Health Service, we now require health authorities every year to draw up short-term programmes. These programmes set out their plans for developing services in the coming year. I have now approved these plans for 1986–87. They show that health authorities are planning significant expansion in services. They will treat more patients, make available more advanced forms of treatment and continue the progress already being made towards caring for people in the community.
The plans are further evidence of the Government's commitment to the National Health Service and build on the progress made in recent years. Since 1978–79 an extra 17.5 per cent. in real terms has already been provided for hospital and community health services. In the coming year an extra £650 million (6.7 per cent.) is being provided against forecast general inflation of 4.5 per cent.
In addition, the steps we have taken to improve management are now beginning to pay off. Health authorities are planning to generate cash savings of £150 million through a wide variety of value-for-money measures. The measures include energy conservation, better management of supplies and competitive tendering for support services. All the £150 million saved will be retained by health authorities.
Health authorities will also be making better use of manpower. Overall numbers are unlikely to change much, but there will be an increase in staff working directly with patients, and most of these will be nurses.
614WThe progress being made in developing the service can be illustrated in three ways. First, total capital spending will be over £900 million compared with £365 million in 1978–79. Next year's figure includes an estimated £130 million of receipts from the sales of land and property, which health authorities will be able to retain. A number of new hospitals will be opened. For example, in the autumn the brand new Brornsgrove and Redditch district general hospital will open at a cost of £24 million, providing a wide range of acute, psychiatric, geriatric and other services. And in the coming year Mersey region will be investing in a major new district general hospital for Southport.
Secondly, we shall continue the move towards community care for the mentally handicapped and other groups of patients. This means, for example, that in northern region by July 1986 only four children will still be in mental handicap hospitals and in South East Thames region no children will be remaining in such hospitals by March 1987. In Oxford the outdated Bradwell Grove mental handicap hospital will be closed allowing the staff to be deployed to care for people in community units.
Thirdly, all regions are also planning important developments in their acute services. They expect the total number of patients treated to rise significantly, and to make progress in the provision of priority services. For example, coronary artery surgery and renal dialysis will be expanded; more hip and joint replacement operations will be done; and a children's bone marrow transplant unit will open in Bristol.