| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
Mr. Gerald Howarth (Aldershot): The Secretary of State referred a couple of moments ago to the ending of what he called the postcode lottery. Can he explain to me, so that I can explain to those of my constituents suffering from multiple sclerosis--some of whom are now in Westminster Hall--why one of my constituents from Hampshire is unable to obtain beta interferon and will have to wait 18 months, while another person from Surrey is able to obtain it immediately and tells me that it is down to the postcode lottery? Rather than going back to the past, will the Secretary of State recognise that people want to know what the Government whom they elected are going to do to improve their health care instead of making it worse?
Mr. Milburn: I shall tell the hon. Gentleman precisely what we will do about it. Every hon. Member is aware of the situation in relation to beta interferon, and the first thing to say is that nobody should hold out beta interferon or any such product as a cure for MS. It is not a cure, because there is no such cure. However, this Government recognise that there is a lottery of care--unlike the previous Government who denied it--and, what is more, we are taking action to tackle it. That is why the National Institute for Clinical Excellence is considering beta interferon. I want to see a fair system of care that does not depend on where someone lives, or who their GP happens to be. Care should be determined according to clinical need. As the hon. Gentleman will be aware, the current guidance on beta interferon, which will be superseded once NICE has reported, is guidance that the Tory Government issued in 1995.
Mr. James Gray (North Wiltshire): My constituent Stephanie Millward will be keen to hear when NICE is to report. If the Secretary of State is happy about the treatment of MS, will he explain why the Government
spend a laughable £640,000 a year on research into the causes of MS? That is a ridiculous sum, so will the Secretary of State commit himself to increasing it?
Mr. Milburn: There are always many demands on the NHS research and development budget--including for research into prostate cancer. We try to ensure that the R and D programme is best geared to meet patients' interests. We will, of course, look at the resources devoted to MS research. With regard to beta interferon, I can tell the House that we expect NICE to report in late summer or early autumn. We will try to make that report available to the national health service as quickly as possible, as we all have a shared interest in getting the matter right. I am afraid that, in the past, the problem has been swept under the carpet.
The Conservative motion also complains about
I have a copy of the fax from the BBC about the programme, dated 20 January this year. Given the concern expressed in the motion about photo opportunities and the misuse of the national health service, I am sure that the House will be interested to know the proposed star of the extravaganza. The fax states:
Mr. Patrick McLoughlin (West Derbyshire):
Will the Secretary of State give way?
Mr. Milburn:
In a moment, as I have given way six times already.
Mr. McLoughlin:
Will the Secretary of State give way on this point?
Mr. Milburn:
The hon. Gentleman, who is a Whip, should sit down. I might give way to him later--if he learns to behave himself.
I shall deal with each of the claims in the Opposition motion, and I shall start with the question of financial provision for the national health service--a subject that we are more than happy to debate.
Over the period of the comprehensive spending review--that is, this year, next year and the year after--the NHS is experiencing average real-terms growth of about 5 per cent. In the present financial year, real-terms growth is actually around 6 per cent. Health authorities are getting cash increases that average 6.8 per cent.
Let me put that in context. The average real-terms growth for the NHS over the full 18 years of the Conservative Government was around just 3 per cent--half the growth in this financial year. During the previous Conservative Government's final five years in office, they did not even manage 3 per cent. growth. They averaged growth of only 2.6 per cent. per year in that time.
It is little wonder, then, that the NHS that this Government inherited had too few doctors and too few nurses; that three quarters of accident and emergency units needed modernising; that the NHS was crying out for the biggest hospital building programme in its history; that waiting lists were too long and were rising; and that our country's record on coronary heart disease and cancer lagged so far behind that of other European nations.
It is also little wonder, after those 18 years of neglect and mismanagement, that we inherited an NHS that was on its knees. We intend to get it back on its feet, but of course that will take time. We will not be happy until it is up and running again as the pride of Britain and the envy of the world. Conservative Members want always to run down and talk down the national health service, but the Government are making progress towards "making political capital" out of the NHS, to borrow the graphic phrase used by the hon. Member for Woodspring.
There are 2,000 more doctors in the national health service than there were when we came to office. We are beginning to turn the corner, too, on nurse shortages. There are 4,500 more nurses in the NHS than there were a year ago, thanks in part to the largest real-terms increase in pay that nurses have had in a decade and a half. It was paid in full--without staging, as happened under the previous Government. The biggest hospital building programme that the NHS has ever seen is under way. Every casualty department that needs it is being modernised.
The hon. Gentleman was talking about difficult decisions. For the first time, we have a means of setting national standards, through the National Institute for Clinical Excellence, to tackle precisely the lottery of care that the Conservative created and connived at. We have also, for the first time, a means of monitoring and inspecting those standards through the Commission for Health Improvement.
Miss Kirkbride:
The Secretary of State has mentioned NICE a number of times, and its views on beta interferon. He will be aware that many people in Westminster Hall right now are very concerned about that. In Worcestershire, only two people out of hundreds with multiple sclerosis are receiving beta interferon. If NICE agrees that beta interferon is a cost-effective treatment, as the right hon. Gentleman's Government would put it, does he promise that everybody in Worcestershire who is able to benefit from receiving beta interferon will have it, and will he make up the shortfall in Worcestershire health authority's budget as a result?
Mr. Milburn:
We have NICE for a very simple and straightforward reason. As both the hon. Lady and I know,
Mr. Nick Harvey (North Devon):
Does that mean that, should NICE decide that beta interferon is not cost- effective and clinically effective, patients who currently receive it can anticipate ceasing to have it in the future?
Mr. Milburn:
That is not the position. We have discussed this issue with NICE, which is under an explicit instruction to look at the ramifications of any decision that it takes--for example, if it decides that in future a drug that patients currently receive is not cost-effective or clinically effective. The important thing about NICE is that it does not substitute for doctors or for other clinicians' decisions. It is there to help and support them and make their job easier. Ultimately, the individual clinician dealing with the individual patient will have to decide. Frankly, I cannot decide that; neither can the hon. Gentleman--and neither, with the best will in the world, can the NHS Executive or the National Institute for Clinical Excellence. It is a clinical decision, but it must be an informed clinical decision, based on what works and what does not, on what is effective and what is not.
using the NHS as a means of providing publicity and photo opportunities . . .
The hon. Member for Woodspring has been caught short once already, so he ought to check his facts more carefully, especially with regard to photo opportunities. For some time, the BBC's "Panorama" programme has been contacting NHS hospitals up and down the land asking if filming could be conducted on their premises. At least 23 hospitals have been contacted, including Basildon hospital, Kettering general hospital, the Princess Royal hospital in Telford, the Royal Shrewsbury hospital, and Kidderminster general hospital. One might think that there is nothing unusual in that, but the filming is not for a factual programme. It is for a fictional programme--the story of one man's experience as a television extra.
William Hague has agreed to be filmed in a variety of situations.
There is more to the story than that. According to the fax, the Leader of the Opposition is to
take on a role in the hospital for half a day; a porter's job or something similar.
I suppose that we should at least be grateful that he is not going to masquerade as a brain surgeon. So much for the Opposition's complaint about photo opportunities: the hon. Member for Woodspring should check his facts before he comes before the House.
| Next Section
| Index | Home Page |