| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
Dr. Brand: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is particularly important to acknowledge that rationing exists because the previous Government denied its existence and therefore managed to privatise long-term care and dentistry?
Mr. Duncan: We never denied the existence of rationing. That is why we introduced measures such as the private finance initiative, which the Secretary of State is now at last adopting, even though he lampooned and derided it in opposition.
We have been drawn into a sterile debate, which, as the hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) pointed out, takes us into a meaningless auction about who is spending more. We compare percentages and amounts, which are rolled up into gross figures by the Secretary of State to reach his figure of £21 billion. However, there is no point in any of that unless there can be a sensible debate about how the health service is funded and about the fact that there is rationing in the service, always has been and always will be.
This sterile debate only brings politics in disrepute. The Secretary of State is guilty of that. He always looks around and chats to his ministerial team when he is being mentioned in the House, as he was so rudely doing when my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe), the shadow Health Secretary, mentioned him this afternoon. There is rationing and, if the Secretary of State does not believe that, I will give him the latest example of the fiasco that is his waiting list policy--a form of rationing if ever there was one.
I have a letter from a doctor at a hospital in Leeds, which says:
The Secretary of State derided Doctor magazine.
Mr. Duncan:
The right hon. Gentleman says, "Yep". I think that is his word for "yes". An article in Hospital Doctor magazine, entitled "How rationing splits you and the patient", contains a box headed "Squaring up", which says:
If there is no rationing, why is a whole edition of Doctor magazine devoted to the issue? It says that its exclusive research, carried out with Hospital Doctor--which the Secretary of State also derides--is the biggest survey yet of doctors' experience of rationing and that the results offer compelling evidence that the Government must acknowledge that rationing is an everyday reality in the national health service. That statement is made not in black and white but, more appealing to the Secretary of State, in red and white. Perhaps he can at least admit the basic fact that the health service is now facing rationing.
The Secretary of State has promised a statement on Viagra, although we have not yet received it.
Mr. Duncan:
The right hon. Gentleman nods. Where is it?
Mr. Duncan:
It is coming up. The Secretary of State makes a quip, with a smile on his face. I hope that we can get some answers, because many people want to know if they will be prescribed Viagra on the national health service or whether there will be an extension of the rationing that he says does not exist.
The Conservative party is interested not only in the national health service, but in all health care in the country. We are prepared to admit that there is rationing in the NHS and to consider the public-private mix that might improve health care overall.
The Minister of State, Department of Health (Mr. John Denham):
The Opposition called today's debate on the pretext of talking about what they call rationing. Labour Members are happy to discuss the speed, availability and effectiveness of treatment on the national health service. Indeed, I shall spend most of my few minutes at the end of this debate talking about that.
It is clear to anyone who has listened to the debate how right wing and out of touch Tory Front Benchers are. I stand willing to be corrected, but I listened to the contribution of the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke), who was full of praise for the right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe), who spoke from the Front Bench, and he singularly failed to endorse the right hon. Lady's ideas for the future of private medicine in the health service. The right hon. Lady's speech and those of other Conservative Front Benchers have made it clear that, for them, today's debate has not been about improving the national health service.
Mr. Kenneth Clarke:
We spent the past 18 years being accused of secretly plotting to privatise the health service and, before we go down that curious path again, I point out that we are no more guilty of it now than we were before. To all Conservatives, it is self-evident that a healthy private sector relieves the pressures on the national health service. That is not inconsistent with wanting a better NHS consistent with all the fine principles on which it is based and which we all endorse. It is a great pity to hear old Labour's arguments so faithfully trotted out whenever we discuss the NHS when Labour is now charged with the responsibility of government and ought to be discussing what is happening now.
Mr. Denham:
It is very interesting to hear the right hon. and learned Gentleman; he still has not endorsed what his right hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald said. As for the old Labour argument, I wonder whether the right hon. and learned Gentleman agrees that
Today's debate has not been about improving the NHS. As my hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Mr. Hinchliffe) said, it has been about giving up the ghost on the NHS. The Conservative argument is not that the NHS is coping, but that it cannot cope--not today, not tomorrow, not ever. Even Baroness Thatcher thought that she should claim that the NHS was safe in her hands. The right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald had no such reservation.
Mr. Andrew Lansley (South Cambridgeshire):
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Denham:
No, I have only very limited time, and have already allowed a considerable intervention.
We heard a softening-up job--softening up of the public for a Tory party that does not believe that the job of making the health service work is worth the candle.
People have been warned. The right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald would have done well to listen to the right hon. Member for Charnwood, when he said:
The main claim that the right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald made was that there is rationing in the NHS. I shall point out, as others have, that, if she believes that, she must also say that there was rationing under the 18 years of Conservative government; yet the previous Government never talked about it.
Miss Widdecombe:
It says so in the motion--as the hon. Gentleman would know if he read it.
"Due to the enormity of my in-patient waiting list, I am unable to see new patients requiring operative intervention for a considerable period of time. As my current waiting time for surgery is in excess of 18 months, I am now not going to be in a position to see new patients until my waiting time for surgery drops below nine months. There is therefore going to be an inevitable delay of several years before I am likely to be able to see your patient."
If that is not rationing, what is? If the Secretary of State is not prepared to admit the condition of the health service, which he is making worse, I do not know what the world will think of him.
"Many doctors try to be honest with patients about clinical rationing".
When will the Secretary of State square up and be equally honest with the patients whom he is cheating day in and day out?
"The national health service is not intended to be a safety net, a guarantor of a minimum standard to those who can afford better private care. It is intended to use taxpayers' funds to provide access to the best of modern clinical practice, and to do so on the basis of the patient's clinical need and without regard to his or her financial circumstances."
That is not what we heard that from the right hon. Lady. Those are the words of the previous Conservative Secretary of State for Health, the right hon. Member for Charnwood (Mr. Dorrell).
"I believe that those who argue that the national health service is unaffordable have fallen victim to an old law. Every difficult and intractable question has an answer that is simple, obvious and wrong."
A better summary of the right hon. Lady's speech I cannot imagine.
| Next Section
| Index | Home Page |