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Health Authority Deficits
7. Mr. Mitchell: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what proposals he has for funding the deficits of health authorities. [410]
Mr. Milburn: Health authorities are expected to produce balanced income and expenditure plans, and have a statutory duty to ensure that net expenditure does not exceed their allocated cash limit.
Mr. Mitchell: I congratulate my hon. Friend on his appointment. I am sure that he will agree that the deficits are the results of a malign process carried out by the previous Government--efficiency savings that amounted to a process of anorexia, which forced bed closures, dismissal of nurses and growing waiting lists. The electorate voted on 1 May to end all that. I hope that my hon. Friend will agree that it should be an early priority to fund the deficits as soon as possible so that the wasting process can be stopped.
Mr. Milburn: My hon. Friend is right about one thing: we want more money to go into front-line patient services.
He is also right that we were elected on a manifesto commitment to stay within departmental spending targets, and we will do that. If the former Secretary of State can contain himself--I know that he is busy electioneering--I shall continue. We will address the issue of bureaucracy in the national health service, undertake a comprehensive spending review in the Department of Health to ensure that waste and inefficiency are cut out, and deal with the sort of problems that my hon. Friend raises.
Rev. W. Martin Smyth: While I welcome the Minister to his position, may I remind him that the health service is a national health service? Perhaps the Department got the figures wrong at times when it allocated funds to various authorities. Will he have a discussion with his colleague in Northern Ireland, where mythological money was taken from the health service to go into security? As a result, one of the areas at greatest disadvantage in health care has been punished again. Health authorities in Northern Ireland cannot meet their budgets.
Mr. Milburn: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I have it in mind to open discussions about some of those issues with my hon. Friends not just in Northern Ireland, but in Wales and Scotland. I also give him an undertaking that we shall consider how resources for both primary and secondary care are distributed to ensure that they fully reflect the health needs of local populations.
Mrs. Anne Campbell: I welcome my hon. Friend to his new position. Is he aware that, to avoid a deficit in funding, the Cambridge and Huntingdon health authority has decided to cut £300,000 from its health visitor service? Does he agree that that is bad news for the early detection of health problems, bad news for the health of schoolchildren who will be affected by the cut, and very bad news for all of my constituents? Will he investigate the matter?
Mrs. Browning: The wages bill is the biggest pull on resources in the national health service. What assessment has the hon. Gentleman made of the additional resources required for his minimum wage policy in the NHS?
Mr. Milburn: I would exercise a little caution if I were the hon. Lady, because the Government in which she served stopped collecting the appropriate pay figures for the national health service.
Multiple Sclerosis
8. Mrs. Helen Jackson: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what drugs are available on the national health service for the treatment of multiple sclerosis. [411]
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Mr. Paul Boateng): Two beta-interferon drugs are currently licensed for the treatment of multiple sclerosis and are available on the national health service. A wide range of drugs is available on the NHS to help alleviate the symptoms caused by the disease.
Mrs. Jackson: I welcome my hon. Friend to his new position. Is he aware of the great disparity between health
authorities regarding the availability of those remedies to people suffering from multiple sclerosis? That causes immense distress to sufferers and their families who know that remedies are available that might slow down the progress of the disease but who are told by their local health authorities that the remedies are not available. Will my hon. Friend take action to ensure that health authorities make such remedies available on the basis of effectiveness and need rather than on the basis of resources or cost?
Mr. Boateng: I thank my hon. Friend for her kind sentiments and for her important question. She will know--the MS Society has made it clear--that there is limited use of those drugs only in relation to some patients. Therefore, the Department considered it appropriate to issue guidelines that preserve a degree of local and clinical discretion in that area. We shall undertake to ensure that those guidelines are applied properly. I have also asked for a report on the way in which health authorities are implementing the guidelines.
Waiting Lists
10. Mr. Boswell: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what steps he is taking to reduce hospital waiting lists. [413]
Ms Jowell: We will reduce the bureaucratic costs of the national health service, and the savings achieved will be used to improve direct patient care by reducing waiting lists for NHS patients. Our commitment is to end waiting periods for cancer surgery and, in particular, to speed up diagnosis and treatment for patients with breast cancer.
Mr. Boswell: I welcome the hon. Lady and her team to their onerous responsibilities. She will know that our constituents have recently expressed their grave concerns about the implications of the explosion in demand for health services. Given the fact that the new Government have no proposals for enhancing NHS funding and--to put it charitably--their restructuring proposals are unlikely to do anything to reduce bureaucracy, but may well increase it, how do she and her colleagues feel about sitting there fiddling like Nero while waiting lists expand further?
Ms Jowell: People throughout the country voted two weeks ago for a Government who would spend more in every pound on patient care rather than on the bureaucracy created by the discredited Government who have just left office. The Conservatives have left our Government with a waiting list situation that is set to get even worse. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman can apologise to his constituents for a legacy of complacency and neglect that will affect patients on waiting lists for a very long time.
Figures for the quarter ending in December showed the highest ever number of people on waiting lists, and they are waiting for longer periods--that is the measure by which our predecessors used to vaunt their great successes. Indications from the service in January and February show that the situation is worsening, with longer queues and lengthening waiting periods. Provisional figures for the quarter to the end of March will be published on Thursday. We will not take any lessons from
the previous Government on how to keep promises to patients and rebuild confidence in our national health service.
Mr. Stevenson:
Is my hon. Friend aware that in North Staffordshire, in crucial areas of treatment, waiting lists are increasing? When considering this important area of national health service policy, will she take into account health authorities such as North Staffordshire which have consistently been denied the resources that the Department of Health says that they should have to meet their targets?
Ms Jowell:
My hon. Friend expresses a widespread concern. His constituents will wish to ensure that the health care that they receive is being funded by resources that are being used to maximum effect for patient care. That is why our commitment to reduce the amount spent on bureaucracy and to increase the amount spent on patient care will be an important benefit and, no doubt, will be welcomed by my hon. Friend's constituents.
The last quarter's available figures for waiting lists showed a fivefold increase in the number of patients who had waited for treatment for more than a year.
Mr. Dorrell:
During the election campaign the Labour party made a specific commitment that 100,000 patients would be taken off the waiting list. However, the Secretary of State refused to tell the Liberal Democrat spokesman when that pledge would be delivered. Will the Minister of State now tell the House when it will be delivered?
Ms Jowell:
It certainly will not be delivered this Thursday, when the last quarter's figures for waiting lists under the previous Government will show increased lists and an increased number of patients waiting for more than one year. The Conservative Government, who have only recently left office, broke every promise that they made to patients about waiting lists. We shall make promises to patients about waiting lists and we shall keep them.
Mr. Wigley:
I welcome the commitment given by the Minister and by the Secretary of State to improve the position for cancer sufferers, but is the hon. Lady aware that some hospitals--such as the district general hospital which serves my area--have capital sums available for improving cancer facilities which are not being brought on stream due to lack of revenue to ensure that the facilities can be fully operated? In deciding priorities, will the Minister ensure that opportunities of the sort that I have mentioned are taken up fully so that those waiting for cancer services are not denied them?
Ms Jowell:
Our pledge to patients waiting for cancer treatment was made absolutely clear. I am sure that I or my colleagues would be happy to talk to the hon. Gentleman about specific circumstances in his constituency. Our determination is to ensure that wherever a patient with a diagnosis of cancer lives, the treatment that they receive is of the highest possible standard. We are in support of the Calman/Hine proposals, which are being introduced throughout the country. They provide a measure against which to judge quality of treatment and early diagnosis, which are so important in securing long-term survival and, wherever possible, recovery from cancer.
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