NHS Trusts (Hansard, 23 May 1991)

§ Mr. Madden
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to his statement of 14 May,Official Report, column 174, if he will arrange to place in the Library full information gathered as a result of the monitoring exercise of health trusts to which he referred.

§ Mr. Waldegrave
No. As I made clear at the time, this preliminary information gathered as part of the routine monitoring of NHS trusts by the NHS management executive may well change from week to week. It is possible that the information about job prospects at Guy's and Lewisham NHS trust given to the Select Committee by its chief executive on 22 May means that it has already been overtaken, and it is more likely that there will be about as many jobs created as lost in the 57 first wave trusts.

§ Mr. Robin Cook
To ask the Secretary of State for Health what plans his Department and the NHS management executive have to provide managerial and management development assistance to the Guy's and North Lewisham hospital trust.

§ Mr. Waldegrave
The Guy's and Lewisham hospitals national health service trust will continue to be eligible to apply for funding from central initiatives such as resource management. We have no plans to provide any other managerial or management development assistance to the NHS trust. Each NHS trust is responsible for its own management development.

§ Mr. Hinchliffe
To ask the Secretary of State for Health what was the annual salary for 1990–91 for the district general manager of each of the predecessor district health authorities of NHS trusts.

§ Mrs. Virginia Bottomley
Details of payments awarded to individual national health service employees are a confidential matter between employer and employee. District general managers are paid on performance-linked contracts. The rates payable from 1 September 1990 were within the ranges of:
DGM 1 £43,940 to £63,470

DGM 2 £41,500 to £59,950

DGM 3 £37,980 to £55,060

§ Mr. Spearing
To ask the Secretary of State for Health what upper limit he will place on the proportion of hospitals eligible to achieve trust status, provided each hospital complies with his current criteria for it.

§ Mrs. Virginia Bottomley
There is no compulsion to apply for trust status: it is a decision to be taken by each 589W unit independently. We have no intention of limiting the numbers of units which can become trusts other than by rejecting applications where the selection criteria are not fulfilled.

Mr. Hinchiliffe
To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will publish the guidance which has been given to the chairmen and chief executives of NHS trusts with regard to their making political statements or comments; and if he will make a statement.

§ Mr. Waldegrave
No such guidance has been issued.

§ Mr. Hardy
To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will seek powers to prevent health service trusts from entering commercial activity other than those related to matters of direct relevance to health; and if any trusts have commenced engagement in such activity.

§ Mrs. Virginia Bottomley
Powers, which are already available to health authorities, were extended to trusts to enable them to enter into commercial activities, for the purpose of generating additional income, provided that these activities do not adversely affect or reduce services to national health service patients; that profits are reinvested back into the health service and that the scheme does not conflict with national policy or cause ethical or legal problems.
It is for the trusts themselves to determine how to use these powers to the benefit of patients.

§ Mr. Hardy
To ask the Secretary of State for Health what salaries or other emoluments are paid to the doctors of those NHS trusts which have been established within south Yorkshire.

§ Mrs. Virginia Bottomley
This information is not held centrally. The salaries of doctors of national health ervice trusts and those of other staff are a matter for the trust board. The hon. Member may wish to write to the chairman of the NHS trusts concerned for details.

§ Mr. Robin Cook
To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will publish details of the originating debt, including its division between public dividend capital and interest bearing debt, of each of the national health service trusts.

§ Mr. Waldegrave
[holding answer 20 May 1991]: The originating capital debt for national health service trusts will be equal to the value of the net assets transferred to the trusts on 1 April 1991, which will be determined when the accounts of the relevant health authorities have been prepared and audited. At that stage an order will he made by statutory instrument under section 9 of the National Health Service and Community Care Act 1990 setting out the composition and terms of the originating capital debt.