Letter from the Minister for the Armed
Forces concerning budget allocation to the Surgeon General for
the financial year 1999-2000
At the oral evidence session on the Defence
White Paper on 19 January I undertook to check further on the
position regarding the alleged cut from the Defence budget of
£1.5 million for reducing waiting lists.[21]
I have now done so and can confirm my original
advice. The budget allocated to the Surgeon General for the financial
year 1999-2000 included no provision for a specific initiative
to reduce waiting lists in the Defence Secondary Care Agency.
At the beginning of the year consideration was given by the Surgeon
General's staff to whether it might, nevertheless, be possible
to accommodate expenditure on such an initiative within his budget
for the year, and ideas were developed on the assumption that
this might prove feasible. In the event it unfortunately became
apparent that it would not be practical to make headroom for the
initiative within the budget allocation, and so the proposal was
not pursued. The proposal that an initiative might be run in the
current year was quite widely known, but it was never formally
funded.
As I also said in my written Answer to Robert
Key's questions, the possibility of an initiative to reduce orthopaedic
waiting lists in the coming financial year is now being considered.
(Official Report, 17 January 2000, Column 284W).
I hope this is helpful.
1 February 2000
21 See Q633, p112. Back
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