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when Ministers mull over the debate they will decide that the proposals are flawed and that they will be revised substantially. 8.44 pmMr. Eric Pickles (Brentwood and Ongar): The Brentwood centre in my constituency is affected by the proposals. I think that it is correct to stress the good work of the National Blood Authority. Our supply of blood is probably one of the best in the world, and only the Australian Red Cross comes close to meeting our standards. It is also correct to pay tribute to the many thousands of blood donors who freely give their blood and so guarantee a constant supply of high quality blood.
As a former member of a regional health authority, I can recall those early days when the fear of HIV was widespread and when we did not quite understand some of the problems associated with hepatitis. The National Blood Authority and the regional units moved quickly to ensure that our blood supplies remained trouble-free.
If we are to make changes to what is a very successful service, we must be certain that the changes will be lasting and that they will enjoy the support of the most valuable component of the service: the donors. I do not believe that there can be any substantial argument against the need for reform. With the reduction in the size of regional health authorities, we can make a case for moving to a zoning policy. A move to three zones should improve the management of the service and ensure an equalisation of supply. It makes not a jot of sense to ration blood supplies in some hospitals when supplies are available in other parts of the country.
It makes sense to have a system that allows computers to talk to one another so that shortages of blood products in one area can be matched to over-production in another. The problem with the report is that the devil is in the detail. The Bain report's recommendations fly in the face of many of its findings, and its recommendation about Brentwood is perverse.
I thank my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health, who is in the Chamber, for his patience and courtesy in listening to my arguments and to those of my constituents. The Government should take their time and listen to such representations. However, the time for a final decision is approaching swiftly. A year is a long time, and we are beginning to see staff drift and a lack of authority within the service to make changes.
I congratulate the Labour party on its choice of motion today. It is quite a feat to complain about the time available for reorganisation while tabling a motion calling for an extension of the consultation exercise.
We come into contact with the national health service when we are ill. We do not often have an opportunity to give something back to the NHS--except through our taxation system--but blood donation gives the ordinary citizen an opportunity to do just that. In our stewardship of the national health service we must be accountable and that is doubly important when it comes to the blood
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service. There would be no service without the active co-operation of donors. The proposals must continue to attract donors and to enjoy their support.Mr. Nigel Waterson (Eastbourne): Does my hon. Friend agree that the sort of scare stories that we have heard from Labour Members tonight may discourage donors from giving blood in the future?
Mr. Pickles: I am afraid that my hon. Friend is absolutely right. We know from the Bain report that 70 per cent. of donors are happy with the current system and only 1 per cent. are strongly against it. The shift towards mobile collections must not risk jeopardising regular established collection sites. After all, we know that special donors attend the Brentwood centre to donate plasma and platelets and we must retain their confidence.
The staff of Brentwood blood transfusion service have not engaged in opposition for its own sake; they have certainly not engaged in the some of the silly scare stories or the nonsense about the sale of blood products. The hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Carlile) said that he was not concerned with matters of xenophobia about the sale of factor 8 and then gave us a lecture on the perfidy of Johnny Turk in making a profit. We know where the Liberal Democrats stand. They would give the product to people abroad. That means that we would have to subsidise the product to go abroad as we would have to pay for its shipping, transportation and distribution.
Mr. Alex Carlile: If the hon. Gentleman had taken the trouble and had the courtesy to listen, he would have heard me say that it is our view that the National Blood Authority is entitled to cover its costs, so will he now withdraw the entirely false accusation that he made or will he perpetuate such a myth?
Mr. Pickles: I am happy to clarify what the hon. and learned Gentleman has said on a number of occasions from a sedentary position. He said, "Let us give it." As the present arrangements are to cover the costs- -exactly what he suggests--perhaps it might be sensible if he withdrew his objections and supported factor 8 which has no international boundaries. [Interruption.] The problem is that the hon. and learned Gentleman is jumping from bandwagon to bandwagon and he must understand that he will occasionally fall between them.
Ms Eagle: Is the hon. Gentleman in favour of the Brentwood proposals in the NBA report--that the Brentwood centre should have its heart torn away by having its blood production facilities shifted elsewhere? Is he in favour or will he join us in the Lobby tonight?
Mr. Pickles: I shall come to that point in a few moments. First, I should like to give the views of the staff at Brentwood. I have had no problems with gagging; they
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have given me full briefing on all the matters concerned. Let us see what concerns them. They are not against the proposals in principle. They say in a detailed document:"We acknowledge and support the following initiatives which would yield significant cost savings in the short-term:--
Zonal centralisation Administration, financial services (including payroll) and personal services.
Negotiation of purchase contracts on a national basis.
Rationalisation of low volume product production and low volume testing to fewer sites within the NBS.
The introduction of a national IT system to replace the various different IT systems in use."
So why are the recommendation about Brentwood wrong? It is not sensible to transfer Brentwood's facilities to Collingdale. I have yet to meet a health economist, clinician or health worker who thinks that it makes sense. Considerable sums of public money have already been spent on renovating the Brentwood centre, as my hon. Friend the Minister has seen for himself.
I understand the arguments about the storage of blood, but they must not obscure the arguments for having good regional coverage for the processing plants. The initial confusion of the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, East (Mr. Brown) does not help matters. Our objection is not about the centre, which would remain open as a storage facility, but about the removal of the processing plant. Brentwood transfusion provides reference services on a 24-hour, seven-day week basis for hospital users. Cross matching blood and antibodies is sometimes required urgently. To restrict facilities for Essex and the rest of East Anglia to Collingdale and Cambridge is not a good use of resources.
Essex, in common with the rest of East Anglia, is a rapidly growing county. Its population is growing rapidly. Brentwood is close to the M25, the M11, the A12 and the A13. Blood can be quickly processed and used from an area covering north London and beyond to the whole of East Anglia. Blood from the most remote part of our region can be returned for processing within a relatively short period. We know from the Bain report that the optimum size for a processing plant is somewhere between 250,000 and 300,000 units per year. Brentwood processes 160,000 units, Cambridge 100,000 units and Collingdale 220,000 units. Collingdale is beginning to approach the upper limits of what Bain considered sensible. Collingdale and Cambridge have restricted sites and the need for blood products within the north London and East Anglia region will continue to grow. Additional space would have to be found in Collingdale to process blood from the north-east Thames region. Brentwood can easily absorb that expansion without any additional building. There is a possibility within the Brentwood centre for a second independent processing line. There is sufficient room to take all the processing from Cambridge.
Cambridge, in addition to blood processing, carries out outstanding research of the storage of human tissue. That work on human tissues is not dependent on its processing work. It is a restricted site and in my view it is in the best interests of the National Blood Authority and the national health service if Cambridge is allowed to continue its research and storage of human tissue and that its facilities for blood processing are transferred to Brentwood. In conclusion, I ask my hon. Friend to make the decision as quickly as possible, to have high regard to the use of processing and the work of Brentwood and to
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ensure that, in the retention of Brentwood, we have the possibility of ensuring that a growing region has the facilities to process blood.8.57 pm
Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey): First, I should declare that I am sponsored by Unison, which has members who are affected by some of the proposals as they work in the blood service, but no personal payment is made to me as a result of that sponsorship.
We need to assess what has been going on. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Mr. Pickles) for the work he has been doing in his own area to try to preserve the facilities that he discussed so eloquently. We have been doing similar work. Many of us agree with and recognise his plea that to remove the processing part of a transfusion centre is to rip out its heart and thereafter it is difficult for it to retain its specialist services and operate as anything more than a glorified fridge.
I pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman, but I shall take the same line as I make a plea for the Liverpool centre. The people of Merseyside have affection for it and know how vital it is to their own well-being. I am not going to plead for the Liverpool centre to be kept open at the expense of another centre. I believe that the entire approach to the rationalisation that we have been discussing has been fundamentally wrong, and that we must take a completely new look at the issue.
The motion suggests that the Secretary of State should visit all five centres that are threatened with--I will continue to call it closure. As the hon. Member for Brentwood and Ongar pointed out, when we take processing facilities away from centres we are effectively taking the heart out of them. "Closure" strikes me as a reasonably accurate description of what is planned for these centres--and it is the description that the National Blood Authority applied from the beginning in its consultation. It began to drop the term only when it realised what the opposition was.
I associate myself with all that has been said about the precious nature of our donor system, which is based on altruism and relies on trust and confidence. No one, I hope, would deny that it is the highest-quality system of blood provision that any country has managed to design so far. We should all be very proud of that, and pay tribute not only to donors but to the staff who work in the centres and to the national blood service. I am careful not to call it the National Blood Authority, as I have had a rather lower opinion of the body since it was made a special health authority in 1993--partly as a result of my own dealings with it, which I shall mention later.
Why, then, are we trying to introduce a fundamental,
root-and-branch reform of a system that has worked so well? Why are we trying to force that reform through? Why was the decision made in secret, and why are we not allowed access to the results--
Mr. John Marshall (Hendon, South): It was not made in secret.
Ms Eagle: It was made in secret, by committees--and, as the hon. Member for Brentwood and Ongar pointed out, Liverpool was not represented on the committees that
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decided that that centre was to close. A good deal has been wrong with the way in which the reform has been planned.Mr. Marshall: Does the hon. Lady not accept that there has been a consultation procedure and that, until a decision has been made following that procedure, nothing has in fact been decided?
Ms Eagle: I only wish that that were true. A zonal system is already operating, however, involving 25 new jobs and very large cars. There is a sense of inevitability about the whole business. The process and our trust in the service have been undermined by the way in which members of the National Blood Authority--particularly Sir Colin Walker and Mr. Adey--have conducted themselves during the past year while the so-called consultation has taken place.
Let us examine the history. First there was the Bain report, which, as was pointed out earlier, was set in train six months after the creation of the new special health authority--the National Blood Authority. After some rather dubious procedures, it came up with a saving of what it says was £10 million out of the overall cost of running the service--£135 million. The consultation document, however, contained few figures and no facts. There was no way of proving where savings could be made, and no obvious sign that any detailed work had been done to establish that. The figures seemed to have been plucked from the air.
The report--all 600 pages of it--cost £682,000 of public money to produce. Bain and Co. also carried out a consultancy job for the National Blood Authority on the future of the bio-products laboratory, which cost £350,000 of taxpayers' money. Of the £1.25 million of taxpayers' money that the National Blood Authority spent on consultants' reports last year, Bain has taken home £1,032,000--a large proportion of the total and, in my view, money for old rope, given the understanding of the workings of the system displayed in some of its recommendations. I consider its standard of work lamentable. It has little understanding of the technical side of blood collection, let alone any idea of the concept of altruism and the "gift relationship" that is so special and central to the way in which our blood service operates. I suppose that that is to be expected.
I am concerned about a number of the proposals, but I shall mention only three. It is clear that Bain canvassed management reaction to privatisation; having said that the idea had been dismissed, it found considerable management support--after circulating a questionnaire--for the idea that
"The English blood service should adopt a more commercial attitude".
It also found overwhelming support among managers for the proposal that the bio-products laboratory should
"sell surplus blood products outside the UK",
and the proposal that
"The English blood service should pursue profitable commercial opportunities outside the UK".
That is a wide-ranging statement, which does not refer just to the sale of surplus blood products. Goodness knows what other "profitable commercial opportunities"
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are envisaged. There was even more support for selling plasma. There is a hint of commercialisation, if not privatisation, in all this.Mr. Waterson: Will the hon. Lady give way?
Ms Eagle: No. I am in the middle of dealing with an issue. I can demonstrate that Bain did not know what it was talking about in other parts of the report as well, and adopted a wholly inappropriate attitude to the gift relationship and donors in particular. It seems that efficiency is measured by the number of pints of blood collected per employee, which strikes me as rather an unfortunate view of what success should mean in a national blood service. The report then glibly argues:
"Collection teams can be easily designated to collect 140-plus donations per day".
We already know that 30 per cent. of all blood supplies are collected from donation points. Fewer than 90 pints are collected each day. People give blood to nearby villages; they do not want to have to traipse to some central point. They want to go to the local church hall and have a cup of tea with the person who has always collected their blood before giving it. The report suggests, however, that it is not economical to organise collection points for fewer then 140 donations a day. It goes on to say--I can only think that a time-and-motion study was carried out--that a rapid through-put system would enable that target to be reached--that being the "efficient" level of donation.
So, in this 18-minute process, 2.3 minutes are allocated to checking people in; 2.4 minutes to screening and questioning, just to check that the blood products to be donated so kindly are safe; 3.5 minutes to a quick haemoglobin test; and a frantic 9.8 minutes to taking the unit of blood. Rules are already in place--this fantastic firm of consultants who were paid so much did not seem to know anything about them--stating that 17.5 minutes is the minimum time in which to take a pint of blood, for all kinds of reasons. That means that the maximum throughput possible for a bloodmobile of the sort that would go to local villages is 60 or 70 units a day, barely half the recommended efficient amount--which just goes to show how much the consultants understand about blood collection and about what donors want.
The consultants also decided to take a look at keeping the blood at room temperature, to see whether that would be a viable efficiency saving. They concluded that it would, saying:
"room temperature hold is a most desirable approach from a logistical and cost perspective . . . estimated saving potential £500,000".
Thus, to save £500,000, they recommended doing away with fridges. After all, people have to check that they are at the right temperature, which requires staff. Doing away with all those visits to the fridge would surely ease work scheduling and reduce processing and testing costs. The consultants add, at the bottom of the page, that there would be a
"risk of enhancement of selected bacterial growth".
That just means that someone given a bad bag of blood will die or become seriously ill.
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It is astonishing that people can come up with such ideas and then write them down. If I had paid £600,000 for such a report, I would feel seriously cheated--but of course the National Blood Authority is not paying for it out of its own pocket. The money is coming from taxpayers' pockets, so Sir Colin Walker can rest easy in his bed. The consultation document that emerged from this fantastic piece of work was disgracefully shoddy: a masterpiece of doublespeak. It contained very few facts, and had clearly been written back from the conclusions that it created. Graphs were included, but without the relevant identifying axes, so no one could take a close look at what they really meant. They were meaningless, as any GCSE mathematics student could point out. The axes that appeared in the Bain report were removed because the published graphs showed that some of the centres it was felt should close were more efficient than the ones that were to be kept open.That sort of approach is not only dishonest; it is shoddy and amateurish, and it immediately creates the impression that the wool is being pulled over people's eyes. It dissipates any confidence that we have in management when we see them employing such techniques.
Mr. Waterson: Inherent in the hon. Lady's last few remarks was the notion that efficiency matters, especially in organisations like the one we are debating, and that some centres are more or less efficient than others, as she conceded. If so, why was she so scathing about attempts by the consultants to examine efficiency in a fairly standard sort of fashion?
Ms Eagle: I do not want to get into a philosophical argument about efficiency. Of course efficiency matters; the point is that it must be put in a health context. When bed through-put is measured for efficiency in the usual economic way, it measures the number of patients who are put through beds, but it does not record whether they were dead or alive when they left the beds; so a slightly more sophisticated approach is called for when applying economic principles to the health service.
The consultation document offers a two-hour delivery guarantee for blood, and there has been some discussion this evening of whether that is adequate. It has been said that that would be a maximum time. But if the Liverpool centre closed, and production and supplies of blood went to Manchester, that would represent a gross deterioration in the service supplying the people of Merseyside, my constituents in Wallasey, and the 350,000 people who live in the Wirral. At present, most Liverpool hospitals can get supplies of blood in five to 15 minutes. Wirral hospitals can have supplies from Liverpool sent within 15 to 25 minutes. Wales, the most isolated area of the region, can expect blood supplies within 60 to 75 minutes. If my mathematics is correct, all those times are shorter than the two hours guaranteed once production facilities are closed in Liverpool.
The issue has come up in discussion and consultation with the National Blood Authority. It said, "Of course the centres won't close. Of course we'll have stockholding units." That was the phrase that Mr. Adey and Sir Colin Walker--my friends whom I admire so much--started to use.
We asked what was meant by the term "stockholding units", as they are not mentioned in any detail in the consultation report. In fact, those of us who were lobbying
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the National Blood Authority with our concerns were of the opinion that the authority was making it up as it went along. Stockholding units are some kind of enhanced fridge facility where, apparently, one can keep extra supplies of blood in hospitals. The Liverpool centre holds 3,500 units of blood; the average so-called stockholding unit in a major hospital holds about 100. If stockholding units are to be put into local hospitals--for example, Arrowe Park, my local hospital--the cost would be significant. They would need a cold storage room, a fridge, administrators, people to look after the blood and people to dispatch the blood, so I do not see where the saving is if that is what stockholding units are.I am interested in what Dr. Bill Wagstaff, one of the newly appointed heads of the northern zone, told the Health Care Management magazine. He said that there might be no new stockholding units at all and that a stockholding unit just means the old hospital fridge. He said:
"Since some hospitals already holds supplies of blood and blood components for others in their area these may take on the official title of stockholders."
In other words, these are weasel words--something that we have come to expect from Mr. Adey and Sir Colin Walker. I met them and am sorry that the hon. Member for Wirral, South (Mr. Porter) has left his place, because he was also at the all-party meeting of Wirral Members of Parliament. We were given an assurance at that meeting that there would be no changes to the current arrangements
"unless a majority of consultant haematologists and other relevant medical experts in the area agreed that patient services could be maintained or improved."
Mr. Adey then backtracked and said that he did not want the majority idea to be involved in the agreement that he had made. He then said that, instead of having a majority,
"We will talk to consultant haematologists and other medical experts in the area about our plans to maintain and improve patient care and will listen very carefully to their views and will move forward only if medical opinion is satisfied."
Medical opinion in Liverpool and Merseyside is not satisfied. These changes are opposed by all expert medical opinion. They are opposed by the people of Merseyside, of whom more than 1,000 attended a public meeting and told Mr. Adey and his blood authority exactly what they thought of these proposals. We will continue to fight them. We hope that Ministers are listening, not only to medical and clinical experts but to the people of this country, and that they will reassess these disgraceful, damaging proposals and bring back something that we can all support and work for.
9.17 pm
Mr. Bernard Jenkin (Colchester, North): I congratulate the hon. Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle) on an extremely well researched and well argued speech, but when I compare it with that made by my hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Mr. Pickles) the contrast in tone could not be more marked.
There is a great problem in dealing with a national health service which needs to learn to cope with an ever faster pace of change. Whatever one's views about particular changes as they are proposed, I much prefer the approach of my hon. Friend, who recognises the need for change, the need for things to adapt and to modernise, as
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opposed to the speech of the hon. Lady and other Opposition Members, who tend to display a wanton disregard for the need for change and to fall back on age-old prejudices that do not help the health service in any way at all.If we had not managed to change the health service in the past 17 years of Conservative Government, goodness me the health service would be in a great mess today. We would not be treating an extra 3, 500 patients per day in the modern NHS. If one looks at all the different reforms that the Conservatives have pushed through the House over the years, I am afraid that there is a rather consistent theme which runs alongside every one of them--that however good the reforms have been and however effective and successful they have proved eventually, the Opposition have exploited every opportunity to oppose them, to scare the public and to put around endless scare stories and myths about what is likely to happen.
That theme goes right back to the much missed, we were to understand, area health authorities. They were abolished in the early 1980s. Who talks about re-establishing them or mourns their passing now? Yet we were told then that the abolition of the area health authorities was the abolition of the NHS as we knew it.
The same happened with the introduction of the limited list system for drugs. We were told that it would be a great curtailment of the choices of clinicians and doctors in the health service and that it would be the end of the national health service as we knew it. The necessary savings and limitations that were put on doctors were totally disregarded, but they are now broadly accepted. Had we listened to all the doctors then, and had we behaved like the walking opinion poll of a Government that the Opposition seem to expect us to be, we would not have made those savings or that progress. The same was true of the introduction of the NHS trusts, and what a success they have been. They have been so successful that even the Labour party is trying to pretend that its policy will emulate the advantages of NHS trusts in all but name. The Labour party still has a bit to learn about GP fundholders, although fundholding has been an extremely successful reform.
Most recently, there was the abolition of the regional health authorities through the Health Authorities Bill this year. No one, not even the Labour party, now seriously suggests that the regional authorities should be re- established after the next election. If we now allowed the prejudices and the opportunism of the Opposition to exploit public opinion on the extremely sensitive issue of the National Blood Authority and the blood transfusion service and to block progress in this area of the health service, it would be a setback and the Government are right to resist that.
I use the word "prejudice" in the strongest sense. I noted the way in which the hon. Member for Wallasey read out the extract from the Bain report and criticised the recommendation that the NBA should look for profitable commercial opportunities outside the United Kingdom. Why should we be against profit for the national health service? We should be explaining to blood donors that the blood that they give is primarily for the national health service, but if there are surpluses we should let the profit
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accrue to the national health service instead of the surpluses being burnt and sent up the chimney, which would mean the money going to waste.Mr. Waterson: Does my hon. Friend agree that if, for example, a third-world country wanted advice on setting up its own blood service and came to the NBA, it would be perfectly right for the NBA to give that advice for humanitarian reasons--a point on which the hon. Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle) refused me the opportunity to intervene--in terms of giving humanitarian assistance to that country, and also right that the NBA should charge consultancy fees for so doing?
Mr. Jenkin: Yes, of course. However, as we have heard endlessly in this debate, the Opposition do not understand the word "consultancy". They wantonly criticise anything that purports to be a consultancy document and they would not begin to understand that a consultancy document prepared by the NBA for another country might be worth a great deal of money for the national health service and for the National Blood Authority.
Mrs. Jane Kennedy: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Jenkin: I will not give way because I know that others wish to speak in the debate.
The representations that hon. Members have received from constituents probably reflect the proximity of blood transfusion centres that are likely to be affected. In my constituency I have had virtually no representations on the subject. Brentwood is just across the county and it is probably where most of the blood for the Colchester general hospital comes from. The alternative may be Cambridge or Colindale.
In fact, the people who give blood and the hospitals that receive it will see hardly any change in the service. The people who may suffer, and to whom we should pay tribute at a time of change, are the staff--those who will have to change the most. However, it does them little service to gallop off with all the scare stories, making matters worse than they need be instead of helping the Government and the service to provide the change that is so sorely needed. 9.24 pm
Mr. John Marshall (Hendon, South): Like other hon. Members, I pay tribute to those who work for the blood service. I know that in my constituency on Sunday there will be people collecting blood from volunteers such as myself. Indeed, I understand that blood has even been collected from members of the Treasury team, although whether the service managed to get blood out of the Chief Secretary to the Treasury I would not like to say.
It has already been pointed out that the blood service in Britain produces the safest blood in the world, but those who rely on blood products from the national health service have not always been able to do so with that assurance. I therefore ask the Minister to think again about the haemophiliacs who were infected with hepatitis C as a result of being given infected blood products. The Government acted generously towards haemophiliacs who were infected with HIV, and I would like my hon. Friend
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to talk again, either in private or in public, about that issue and tell me what progress has been made on providing funds to ensure that those with hepatitis C are being give adequate treatment. I also reiterate another point, because the chairman of the Haemophilia Society is a constituent of mine: the Haemophilia Society has confirmed that it has no objection to the export of surplus factor 8. The society sees no sense in saying that we should not export it. If we do not, we deny other people a chance of life and the at the same time deny a small sum to the NHS.Those who give blood do so to save life, and it would be wrong if that donated blood were burnt instead of being used to save lives. I am appalled that people can put political prejudice before the saving of life, and we have heard some pretty unctuous humbug and nonsense talked on that subject tonight.
9.27 pm
Mr. Nigel Waterson (Eastbourne): I am delighted to have an opportunity, albeit brief, to contribute to the debate. Above all, the debate is a tribute to the willingness of the British people, in places such as Eastbourne and other places all over the country, to give their blood on a perfectly voluntary basis, out of pure altruism.
There were 2.4 million such donations last year, and about 800,000 patients received the benefit of transfusions. I heartily endorse what the Minister said in his opening speech: we support and emphasise the importance of the voluntary principle in the blood service in this country.
If you were a Martian listening to the debate--although I know that you are not, Mr. Deputy Speaker--you might think that Conservatives would be the people who oppose change. I believe that it was Lord Kilmuir who said:
"If it is not necessary to change, it is necessary not to change."
That has been a strong Conservative tradition, but it means two things. It means preserving traditions which are useful, but it also means testing on a regular basis to find out whether change would bring greater benefits and efficiency.
In the debate it has emerged that it is the Labour party which resists sensible and constructive change. Labour Members are the advocates of continuing a system of bureaucracy which has its roots merely in the historical system which produced 14 or 15 different centres. For the Labour party everything must always remain the same, but the National Blood Authority and I believe that we need a fully integrated modern national blood transfusion service in this country.
What we are talking about tonight will not directly affect donors. We are talking about the consolidation and administration and processing of blood supplies. In doing that, we are aiming for the highest possible standards of safety--in the light of HIV and hepatitis--and reliability of supply. My hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Mr. Pickles) spoke at length about the problems of inequality of supply in different parts of the country. We are looking for a reduction in cost and the pursuit in the right circumstances of commercial opportunities--such as the example that I gave in an intervention--which would bring extra revenue into the NHS, as well as save money.
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