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Mr. Dobson: I thank my hon. Friend for her comments. The Conservative party seems unable to make up its mind whether it likes NHS Direct or not. I like it, and the public like it. It works, and it works better than anything that the Tories introduced.
Mr. Andrew Lansley (South Cambridgeshire): Will the Secretary of State confirm that he referred in his statement to two sums of money? On the first--the £100 million from the capital modernisation fund--will he confirm that page 67 of the "Financial Statement and Budget Report" makes it perfectly clear that that is not new money? Will he tell us how much of that £100 million was intended to be spent in 2000-01, and is, therefore, simply re-phased expenditure rather than new money?
Secondly, on the money from the national lottery, does the Secretary of State agree that everyone will be pleased to see money going into cancer treatment, but that there is a problem over the method of allocation of that money? There is great concern that, because the money is being directed through the NHS, it will not be additional money, while the national lottery should provide extra expenditure. Would it not be better if cancer care charities such as Marie Curie Cancer Care or the Macmillan nurses
could provide the means by which to direct that money? If provided in that way, the money would be additional and would provide the multiplier effect on the effort to raise money to which the Secretary of State referred.
Mr. Dobson:
The very organisations to which the hon. Gentleman referred have welcomed what we are doing. They will be heavily involved in the allocation of funds, and we want to involve all voluntary organisations that raise money locally. It is not a bad idea to have money going into the health service in line with NHS priorities, and we believe that the method chosen is the soundest way in which to provide it. The money is additional.
The hon. Gentleman's other point was whether the extra £100 million for accident and emergency or direct access services was new money. Simply, it is. That money was not included in the comprehensive spending review for the health service.
Mr. Lansley:
It was in the comprehensive spending review.
Mr. Dobson:
No, it was not. Some £430 million has been earmarked from the generalised Treasury modernisation fund for use by the health service over the next three years. Of that £430 million, £100 million is being made available this year. That money is additional to the funds that had been announced previously for the health service.
Mr. Syd Rapson (Portsmouth, North):
I thank my right hon. Friend for visiting Queen Alexandra hospital in Portsmouth recently. Everyone there praised him for providing money for a refurbished accident and emergency unit. Staff there will take the money, wherever it comes from. It is small minded and churlish not to grab the money with both hands and to welcome it.
My right hon. Friend's visit was hijacked to some extent, however, by the issue of Haslar hospital, Gosport. The hon. Member for Portsmouth, South (Mr. Hancock) is not here, but I am sure that he would say that that hospital's A and E unit also needs extra money following a period of having been run down. I hope that my right hon. Friend can say something in support of that hospital, but we welcome his statement today.
Mr. Dobson:
The first hospital that I visited after I became Secretary of State for Health was the Boothroyd centre in Dewsbury, which goes to show, Madam Speaker, what a total creep I can be. The second was Queen Alexandra hospital in Portsmouth, which had a run-down accident and emergency department. It was a disgrace that the staff were expected to perform their valiant service in such conditions. It was there, too, that I met a nurse whose face had been slashed open by a yobbo who attacked her while she was trying to help. That is one reason why I have been so committed to trying to make life more safe and secure for those who work in accident and emergency departments.
Mr. Alan Duncan (Rutland and Melton):
So are we.
Mr. Dobson:
The hon. Gentleman may say that, but representatives of the British Medical Association tell me that they stopped talking to the previous Government
My hon. Friend the member for Portsmouth, North (Mr. Rapson) referred to the closure of Haslar hospital, which has been decided by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence. As I made clear on the day of my right hon. Friend's announcement, we owe it to the people of Gosport to ensure that top-quality services are available for them there. They should not be expected to rely for the bulk of their services on going to Portsmouth, which is a fair stride away if one needs urgent treatment.
Mr. James Paice (South-East Cambridgeshire):
How many extra beds will be created in our acute hospitals as a result of the right hon. Gentleman's announcement about the creation of admissions wards? Or is it simply a redefinition of beds that are already there, under another guise?
Mr. Dobson:
I cannot tell the hon. Gentleman the figures because all the details have yet to be worked out. In due course, that information will become available. As the hon. Gentleman ought to know, accident and emergency professionals and the Royal College of Physicians think that, even if some beds that were used for something else are used in an admissions ward, they will be being better used and the total benefit to patients will be greater than if they were not so used--[Hon. Members: "Ah!"] Some will be entirely new, some will be new and additional and others will not. I am not pretending that everything is additional--I am not as silly as Conservative Members apparently are.
Ms Helen Southworth (Warrington, South):
In view of the additional resources that my right hon. Friend has announced, may I offer him best wishes not merely for a happy birthday but for many happy returns to this House with more announcements of that type? Is he aware that, in the last few months of the Tory maladministration, ambulances were queuing up outside Warrington hospital with patients inside them waiting for admission to the accident and emergency unit? Will he assure me that Warrington hospital, which provides an accident and emergency service for the entire north Cheshire region and which has no adequate medical assessment unit, will receive some of the resources that he has announced? That would make the people there, who work extremely hard, very happy.
Mr. Dobson:
I can say that the proposals for improvements to accident and emergency services at Warrington hospital are among the biggest of the projects that will be covered by my announcement.
Mr. Desmond Swayne (New Forest, West):
Given the importance that the Secretary of State has rightly attached to expenditure on cancer care, will he confirm that the Government have abandoned the principle of additionality for lottery money?
Mr. Dobson:
No. I should explain that this money is additional to the money that the taxpayer is finding for cancer treatment and also additional to the charitable funds collected by all sorts of civic-minded people
Mr. Bill O'Brien (Normanton):
I express my appreciation to my right hon. Friend for his statement and I appeal to him to extend NHS Direct throughout the region so that we can have the benefit of that service. May I also express appreciation on behalf of the people who work at Pinderfields general hospital in my constituency and at the Pontefract general infirmary, which serves my constituency, for the introduction of a scheme that will improve the accident and emergency units in those hospitals? The two units are very good, but I am sure that there is room to extend the facilities to help the patients who use them. Will my right hon. Friend undertake that the admission wards will be single sex? Unisex wards could cause difficulties because people are demanding privacy. Will he take that into consideration?
Mr. Dobson:
We are committed to getting rid of, rather than introducing, mixed-sex wards. I hope therefore that all the additional facilities will be single sex. West Yorkshire will go on-line with NHS Direct early in April, and I will be there to do the opening ceremony.
Dr. Peter Brand (Isle of Wight):
There appears to be a further extension of the scope of NHS Direct. Do NHS Direct services have to fit in with the health improvement programme determined by local authorities, to be delivered by primary care groups, or is a parallel primary care system being established? Is NHS Direct so named because it gives patients direct access to the NHS or because it allows the Secretary of State to have direct control over medical services?
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