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Acute Services
10. Mr. Andrew George (St. Ives): If he will make a statement on the number of NHS acute hospital beds and staff to support them. [110862]
The Secretary of State for Health (Mr. Alan Milburn): The latest figures show that there are 108,000 acute beds in the NHS. We are currently consulting, through the national beds inquiry, on how we can best secure an increase in the number and the type of beds. Crucial to that are increases in nurse and doctor numbers. Both are rising under this Government.
Mr. George: I am grateful to the Minister for that reply, but does he not accept that under successive Governments, Secretary of State hospital bed numbers have declined by 2 per cent. a year since 1980, even though patient numbers have increased by 3.5 per cent. a year? The problem is not of the Government's making; but does he accept that, rather than the Government going ahead with the 1p in the pound tax cut, the British public would rather see that money spent on the national health service?
Mr. Milburn: We are spending more money on the NHS--a damn sight more than the Liberal Democrats promised in their manifesto at the previous general election--but we need to reverse a 30 or 40-year decline in the number of beds in the whole system. Given the demographic pressures and our ageing population--we have seen this winter some of the pressures that they cause in hospitals--the Government want to expand services in the NHS. That is what we are about and my strong view
is that the decline in hospital bed numbers cannot continue. That is not only a question of getting the number of hospital beds right, however. We have to make sure that there are enough beds in the whole care system and we are committed to achieving precisely that.
Mr. Mike Gapes (Ilford, South): Will my right hon. Friend consider the serious problems and pressures in north-east London? In particular, I draw his attention to the recent letter from the chief executives of the Redbridge trust and the Redbridge and Waltham Forest health authority to the NHS London regional office, urging additional beds for the King George hospital site in my constituency.
Mr. Milburn: I am aware of the pressures in my hon. Friend's area and in other parts of London, too. The answer, as Christine Hancock of the Royal College of Nursing rightly said recently, is not only an increase in the number of beds. We can get beds on any high street, but we cannot get trained nurses. It takes time to train the nurses, but I can tell my hon. Friend that we are beginning to turn the corner as regards nurse shortages. There are 4,500 more nurses in the NHS now than there were a year ago. That is good progress. There is still some way to go, but the signs are positive.
We have more nurses coming back in and more nurses in training, and the number of people applying for nurse training courses is increasing. Those are all positive signs. We shall continue to build on them, but to achieve an increase in capacity in the system we also need to reform the way in which people work. It is very important that we allow nurses to take on new roles. That, in turn, will help to make nursing, midwifery, health visiting and the therapy services, which are so important to the NHS, even more attractive careers.
Mrs. Caroline Spelman (Meriden):
I am glad to hear that the Secretary of State acknowledges that the 15,000 nursing vacancies have such a disastrous impact on acute bed capacity. Given that the Royal College of Nursing estimated that there were 12,000 departures from nursing last year, is not the Secretary of State's claim to have turned the corner, with the equivalent of 3,000 full-time new recruits, a bit like the Home Secretary's over- optimism about the number of extra police officers?
Mr. Milburn:
No, the hon. Lady obviously has not been listening. There are not 3,000 full-time equivalent returners; there are an extra 3,000 nurses working in the national health service--that is the full-time equivalence. There are 4,500 extra nurses. Many of them are taking advantage of precisely the sort of flexible employment that we are opening up to nurses, so the total full-time equivalence is fewer than 4,500: it is 3,000--[Interruption]--as I have just told the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr. Hammond), if he would care to listen.
We are making progress, and frankly we shall take no lectures from the Conservative party, which reduced the number of nurses and, more importantly, cut the number of nurse training places. Never was there such a short-sighted policy in the NHS, and we are beginning to turn it around.
11. Dr. Lynne Jones (Birmingham, Selly Oak):
When he expects to report on Government proposals for the reform of the Mental Health Act 1983. [110863]
The Minister of State, Department of Health (Mr. John Hutton):
Our proposals, which are set out in the Green Paper, are subject to consultation until 31 March. We will report on the outcome later this year.
Dr. Jones:
I was pleased to hear the Secretary of State earlier reinforce the point that the NHS exists to serve patients. Will my hon. Friend ensure that the main purpose of the review of the Mental Health Act is seen to be to give patients the right to first-class care and treatment, rather than to reinforce the negative stereotypes of mentally ill people as being a danger to the public?
Mr. Hutton:
I can certainly reassure my hon. Friend that it is precisely the purpose of our proposals to improve mental health services. Those proposals do not consist only of the Green Paper; I am sure that she will be aware of the national service framework that we published in September and the additional £700 million that we are making available to modernise mental health services over the next three years. The entire thrust of our proposals is to ensure that people with mental health problems have access to a first-class national health service, and I am sure that she will be supporting them.
Mr. Tony Baldry (Banbury):
Can the Minister assure the House that those who are detained compulsorily under the Mental Health Act will always have a voice? There is a concern that people get lost and forgotten. Will the Minister give consideration in the consultation paper to ensuring that those people have an advocate so that they are not simply lost in the system?
Mr. Hutton:
Yes, I can assure the hon. Gentleman about those points. I hope that if he has had a chance to study the Green Paper, he will agree that in addition to improving the protection of staff, patients and the public, we have struck a better balance between resolving those issues and ensuring that patients who may in future be subject to compulsory treatment have access to a better process of decision making about their treatment. That has certainly been our intention in proposing detailed reforms in the Green Paper, and it makes a significant change in the way we deal with such issues in legislation. I hope that he will, in his own way, be able to support them.
Mr. Mike Hancock (Portsmouth, South):
Last year, the Secretary of State announced that there would be 231 new secure places in mental hospitals, 31 of which would be in the south-east. Where have the Government got to with those plans? Is the Minister aware of the case of my constituent, a patient who was attacked in a unit in St. James's hospital when a cup of boiling water was thrown over him? That resulted in his being taken to the special burns unit and the offending patient being held in a ward that should take five patients; so four patients had to be moved to accommodate one patient with seriously disturbed behaviour.
Mr. Hutton:
I can tell the hon. Gentleman that the 221 beds to which he is referring have already been provided in the national health service. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State announced in November that we were increasing the total number of additional secure beds that we wanted to provide in the NHS from 300--a target that we set in the national service framework--to 500, and that we were bringing forward the meeting of that target by a year, so those additional 500 beds will be available in the NHS by April 2001.
Dr. Brian Iddon (Bolton, South-East):
I welcome reform of the Mental Health Act 1983, but will my hon. Friend pay attention to the anxiety expressed by members of the general public in the past few weeks about the protection of the mental health of children, especially regarding the over-use of mood-modifying drugs such as Ritalin?
Mr. Hutton:
I am well aware of the concerns that have been expressed about the use of Ritalin. That is why its use has been referred to the National Institute for Clinical Excellence. I hope that the institute will be able to provide authoritative guidance on the use of Ritalin in the future.
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