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Mr. Dorrell: First, they did not; secondly, I have clearly set out the arrangements under which the budgets
for these different parts of the health service will work in the next 12 months. The budget out of which administrators are paid is being cut, the budget from which nurses and doctors are paid is growing.
Nurses are not the only people to benefit from this dramatic improvement in the investment in human resources available to the health service. Exactly the same is true of the doctors. It will be within the memory of everyone in this House that, until a very short time ago, the NHS used to rely on absurdly long hours being worked by junior medical staff. That is why the Government, at the beginning of the decade, introduced a new deal for junior doctors. It is worth reminding the House of the progress that we have made in improving the terms of junior doctors in the NHS.
There used to be 13,000 posts in the NHS in which doctors were on call for an average of more than 83 hours a week. Now there are no such posts. There used to be 14,000 hard-pressed posts in which doctors were on call for more than 72 hours a week. Now there are virtually none--295, to be precise. By the end of this year, we are on course to have eliminated every junior doctor post with an on-call requirement of more than an average 72 hours a week. [Interruption.]
Opposition Members may find this funny, but no junior doctor does. Neither does any junior doctor find it remotely funny to have had £65 million in extra resources provided to ensure that the work load placed on junior doctors in training is kept within reasonable bounds. Nor do they think that it is funny that we have created an extra 2,500 medical posts--consultants and juniors--to ensure that the workload is more fairly spread around the medical work force of the health service. Nor do they think that it is funny that the number of consultants has grown over the past five years--
Mr. Ronnie Campbell:
Will the Secretary of State give way?
Mr. Dorrell:
Not at the moment, because thehon. Member for Peckham seems to think that it is funny that we have cut the excessive workload of junior doctors throughout the health service. The hon. Lady says that we have not. She will not find many doctors who do not agree with the proposition that we have cut the unreasonable, excessive workload for junior doctors, and, furthermore, that we have increased the consultant work force in the NHS by 14 per cent. over the past five years.
The Government are committed not just to good training for nurses, which I have described, but to high-quality training for doctors, to a reasonable workload for doctors and to investment in the continuing education to ensure that doctors, nurses--all the professional staff of the health service--keep their skills up to date to ensure that medical and other professional practice continues to develop within the NHS. That is the most important single investment that the NHS can make.
More important than all the buildings and expensive kit, we must ensure that the health service has the best quality human skills that we can muster to deliver health care to our patients. The professional staff of the health
service will have noted that Opposition Front-Benchers, who bring the subject of NHS morale to the House, find it a subject for private entertainment.
Mr. Campbell:
What would the Secretary of State say to a gynaecologist who wrote to me in these terms:
Mr. Dorrell:
The hon. Gentleman quotes from a letter that I have not seen. I have made it absolutely clear that I regard the training of doctors, nurses and all the professional staff in the health service a high priority. That is why I provided extra money in last year's pay settlement to ensure that the health service invests in its people, and then, having trained them, that it is a good employer and gives them fair terms.
Dame Jill Knight (Birmingham, Edgbaston):
Has my right hon. Friend been able to find out from Opposition Members, who consider that things are so bad--indeed, the hon. Member for Blyth Valley (Mr. Campbell) obviously feels that if more money were spent, all of the tiredness would go--how much more money per annum the Labour party would put in to avoid these situations?
Mr. Dorrell:
My hon. Friend raises an extremely important point. As she knows, it is a rhetorical question. The answer is no. They have made no commitment. They have not even matched the commitment that the Government give: that year by year there will be real-terms growth in the extra resources for the health service. Opposition Members are remaining very mum now. They have not been to the hon. Member for Dunfermline, East (Mr. Brown) to get that cleared, have they?
I shall give way to the hon. Member for Peckham if she will tell the health service how much extra money a Labour Government would promise.
Mr. Dorrell:
With all respect to the hon. Gentleman, I doubt whether he is in a position to speak with authority on this subject.
I shall happily give way to the hon. Lady if she is prepared to tell the House and the nation how much extra money a Labour Government would promise.
Her silence speaks volumes. She is not even prepared--
Mr. Campbell-Savours:
Will the Secretary of State give way?
Mr. Dorrell:
The hon. Member for Workington may have ambitions, but I am afraid that I have to remove the delusion.
Mr. Deputy Speaker:
Order: The Secretary of State is not giving way. The House must settle down.
Mr. Dorrell:
I have talked about training and investment in the human skills of the health service. We
Last week, we debated fundholding. That has given GPs throughout the country the opportunity to improve the care that is available to their patients. It has strengthened the voice of primary health care in the health service and has provided a broader range of provision to patients in the surgeries.
Mr. Eric Martlew (Carlisle):
Will the Secretary of State give way on that point?
Mr. Dorrell:
No, we spent a long time on fundholding last week.
We announced yesterday the best results seen on waiting times in the health service within living memory. We announced that just under 21,000 patients had been on a waiting list for more than a year. Throughout the 1980s--this is not a political point, as the figure was inherited from the 1970s as well--the number of people who were on a waiting list for more than a year was plus or minus 200,000 for more than a decade. That figure is now down to 21,000. That figure was referred to as sleight of hand. It is no such thing. We have cut the waiting time for patients on in-patient waiting lists, so that nobody waits for more than 18 months. A few years ago, 80,000 people had been waiting for more than two years. Now, nobody waits for more than 18 months. The number of patients waiting for more than 12 months is down to 21,000. The average waiting time on an NHS waiting list has been cut from nine months to four months. That is real progress, and patients who are on waiting lists, or feel that they may be on one for elective surgery in the health service, understand that very well. It represents a dramatic improvement in the quality of the elective surgery service that is provided by the NHS.
Mr. Kevin Hughes (Doncaster, North):
I am grateful to the Secretary of State for giving way on waiting lists, because I hope that he will tell us which one he is referring to. Is it the waiting list to get on the waiting list, or is it the proper waiting list? As far as patients are concerned, when they have been to see their GP, they are on a waiting list, but the Government, through their people in the health authorities, have created two waiting lists: first, they put the patient on a waiting list for an appointment to see a consultant--a list that they could be on for 12 months before they are even seen--and secondly, when they get to him, they are put on a waiting list for 18 months. That makes two and a half years, not 18 months.
Mr. Dorrell:
The hon. Gentleman is simply wrong. Opposition Members claim to be supporters of the NHS, but when there is a clear improvement in the quality of service available to NHS patients, one might have hoped that Opposition Members would welcome it. It is simply untrue to say that patients on waiting lists do not wait a shorter time than a few years ago. In-patients are waiting a shorter time for admission, and [Interruption.]
Mr. Dorrell:
If the hon. Member for Doncaster, North will contain himself in silence for a moment, I shall tell him
"Having observed the midwives on the ward on several occasions, I am struck by the fact on many occasions they are tired, exhausted, confused, scurrying around trying to maintain basic standards."?
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