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Health Provision (Wales)

3. Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab): What discussions he has had with the new Minister for Health and Social Services in the National Assembly for Wales Government on strategic approaches to health provision in England and Wales. [216968]
 
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The Minister of State, Department of Health (Ms Rosie Winterton): My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has not yet met the new Minister for Health and Social Services in the National Assembly for Wales, but he regularly meets his fellow UK Health Ministers to discuss matters of common interest.

Huw Irranca-Davies: I seek the indulgence of the House to pay tribute to the staff in acute care and ambulance services at Morriston hospital, Swansea, who saved my father's life over the Christmas period. I also pay tribute to the work carried out in the national health service throughout the country.

I am sure that the Minister agrees that one of the benefits of devolution is that we can learn lessons from both sides of Offa's dyke, and the Assembly should be applauded for its work on primary care, healthy living initiatives and so on. When the Minister meets Dr. Brian Gibbons, the new Health and Social Services Minister, will she take the opportunity to bolster his good work on waiting times by discussing the excellent initiatives in England such as targeted waiting times and mobile units?

Does she think that some matters will be off the record in those discussions—

Mr. Speaker: Order. That is three supplementaries; we will not go into a fourth.

Ms Winterton: I am sure that the staff will appreciate my hon. Friend's comments, because NHS staff are too often not thanked for their work. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will meet the Health and Social Services Minister in the Welsh Assembly Government, and I am sure that he will be happy to discuss how we have made dramatic improvements on waiting lists, which is a problem that we inherited, by setting clear national targets and adopting innovative approaches such as mobile units. I am also sure that he will be happy to discuss improvements to public health in Wales.

My hon. Friend asked which matters will not be on the agenda. The introduction of patient charges in the NHS, taking £1.2 billion away from the NHS and the dreaded patient passport will certainly not be on the agenda, because, unlike the Conservative party, this party believes in the NHS being free at the point of need.

Chris Grayling (Epsom and Ewell) (Con): While the Minister is discussing public health, will she undertake an urgent review of strategy for health protection and food safety with the devolved Administration in Wales and its counterpart in Scotland in the light of this week's contamination of the food chain? In particular, will she undertake to review the role of the Food Standards Agency, given the slow and chaotic way in which it has responded to the crisis?

Ms Winterton: The most important point is ensuring maximum protection for the public, and we expect the FSA to do just that. We will examine the episode to see what lessons can be learned, but we will take no lessons from the Conservative party, which brought us bovine spongiform encephalopathy. The Conservative plans in the James review include cutting the Meat Hygiene Service, which was set up to protect the public.
 
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Ian Lucas (Wrexham) (Lab): Does my hon. Friend agree that it is not acceptable for patients from Wales who are seeing the same consultant as patients from England at the same hospital to wait twice as long to obtain similar treatment? Will she discuss that issue as a matter of urgency with the new Minister in the National Assembly for Wales and impress upon him the great success of the NHS in England in reducing waiting times?

Ms Winterton: I hope that my hon. Friend recognises that those matters are obviously for the Assembly, and, if he feels it necessary, I am sure that he will make those points to Assembly Ministers. In March, guidance will be published on payments between Welsh and English trusts and on waiting times.

Dame Marion Roe (Broxbourne) (Con): How can the Minister possibly believe that the people of Wales are receiving value for money when, despite a 31 per cent. increase in funding between 2000 and 2003, the number of finished consultant episodes actually declined by 1 per cent. in that time?

Ms Winterton: The hon. Lady knows that the matters that she raises are for the Welsh Assembly to determine. The Conservative party did not support devolution to Wales. We do, and those matters are for the Welsh Assembly.

Waiting Times (Diagnostics)

4. Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD): What his Department's policy is on reducing waiting times for diagnostics. [216969]

The Secretary of State for Health (Dr. John Reid): By 2008, the maximum time from GP referral to the start of treatment will be down to just 18 weeks. That includes diagnostic procedures.

To that end, I announced last week an increase of 2.75 million extra scans and diagnostic procedures by 2008, all of which will be delivered to patients in the national health service free of charge at the point of need.

Tom Brake: On the latter point, the Secretary of State knows of the grave concerns about the previous contract for MRI scans, especially the problems of hidden costs, staff leaving the NHS, tests having to be repeated and wrong diagnosis. Why is he confident that the same problems will not occur under the new contract?

Dr. Reid: Because there is not a shred of evidence to show that there were undue problems with the first contract. Twenty-five thousand treatments have been carried out under that contract and patient satisfaction is 96 per cent., which is comparable with anything that we have ever done in the NHS. Of course, when one embarks on such an undertaking, there are teething problems. However, we should be careful to ensure that we are on the side not only of the health care providers in the NHS but of the patient. I know that the Liberals always put the interest of the patient second to that of the producer, but the 600,000 extra scans that we procured for NHS patients mean that, for example, in
 
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Newham hospital, which I visited last week, people are now waiting less than one week. That is a huge improvement for patients. It is one of the reasons why, when purchasing another 2.4 million scans, I was willing not only to extend the number of NHS scans by 1.4 million but to procure another 1 million from the independent sector, in the knowledge that they would all be delivered free—with no charges, unlike what would happen under a Conservative Government—to all patients in the NHS.

David Taylor (North-West Leicestershire) (Lab/Co-op): The constituency of North-West Leicestershire is mainly served by the University Hospitals of Leicester Trust—one of the largest in the country—which sees 2,500 people a day as new or follow-up out-patients. It had a disappointing record until recently. Will my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State come with me to the hospital to see how the position has been significantly transformed? All waiting list targets have been fulfilled six months in advance of the Government's requirements, all suspected cancer patients are seen in 14 days, and the management and staff are among the finest in the country. Will he accompany me to inspect what has been done?

Dr. Reid: I shall certainly try to arrange that in my schedule, but in any case I congratulate the staff not only in the hospital that my hon. Friend mentioned but throughout the country, who have matched the investment that the taxpayer has been prepared to invest in the NHS with reform and finding new ways of working so that output is greater, whatever the level of investment. The speed with which people can see GPs or be referred from GPs to consultants is light years ahead of what it was under the Conservative Government. However, I accept that, when more people are going through far more quickly, there is a potential bottleneck at the diagnostic level. That is why I am not only rapidly expanding the number of NHS scans, tests and diagnostic treatments but procuring from the independent sector. I stress to all hon. Members my pledge that, under this Government, charges will not be introduced for basic operations or basic treatments on the diagnostic side. To do so would be at odds with the founding principle of the NHS, and the Government will do no other than stand against such an outcome.

Dr. Richard Taylor (Wyre Forest) (Ind): The Secretary of State referred to the teething troubles with some of the reporting from private sector MRI scans. How will he tackle those troubles, especially given that there is no longer any contact between the referring clinician for the scan and the radiologist who does the reporting? In the past, that contact was incredibly helpful.

Dr. Reid: There is continual liaison with the Department on this matter. Before embarking on this course of action, the Department consulted widely on it, including with the royal colleges, and we will continue to try to identify any problems involved. We should not pretend that there are never any problems in diagnostics in the NHS. There are, and they include huge delays, but I can tell the hon. Gentleman that, as a result of the medical programme to which he referred, waiting times
 
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for diagnostics have been cut right across the NHS. For instance, in Huddersfield, access times have been cut from 38 weeks to eight weeks; in Ipswich, they have been cut from more than 30 weeks to five weeks; and in Newham, they have been cut from 18 weeks to less than a week. While I accept that we have to deal with the problems that arise—including problems involving a degree of opposition to any novel procurement outside the NHS from people inside it; we have to take that into account—the patient must come first. The patient is getting far better, quicker service than ever before and, I repeat, all of it is free at the point of need.

Mr. Paul Burstow (Sutton and Cheam) (LD): These are the hidden waiting lists that the Government say they will finally publish. They will not, however, publish them until after the general election. The Secretary of State has just rehearsed some figures on improvements in diagnostics, but will he share all the figures that he has with Members of the House, so that we can see for ourselves how the NHS is improving? Will he also confirm that the announcement that he made last Friday in fact involves expending from existing NHS budgets to deliver the new contracts, rather than from new NHS funds? Will he allow the local NHS to take decisions for itself about how best to cut diagnostic waits, rather than bouncing it into a nationally arranged contract? Will he also ensure that all NHS scanning equipment is being used to the full, rather than sitting idle, as much of it is now?

Dr. Reid: On the hon. Gentleman's first point, the reason that we cannot publish comprehensive lists of waiting times for diagnostics is that, for 60 years and under successive Governments, that information was never collected. It is unfair that we do not include that information when we calculate the waiting time for operations, and I therefore pledge that it will be published. By 2008, it will be not only published but included in the calculation of the waiting time, which will be counted not just from the last little bit of the journey but from the beginning right to the end. And we pledge that it will be 18 weeks.

The hon. Gentleman also asked whether we would allow local providers of health care to have the power to choose how they would provide it. No, I will allow the patients to decide how, where and when they will gain access, and I will allow them to do that in days, in some cases, rather than weeks or months. I will certainly not do what some people in the Liberal party want to do, which is to break up the NHS by making it rely effectively on local authority control. That would allow inequalities to grow in the most impoverished areas, while the most affluent areas could provide better access. That, to me, is as bad as the charging regime that the Tories want to introduce.

Mr. Speaker: Order. Before I go on to question 5, I must point out that that is where we are, although we are halfway through Question Time. I must ask for briefer answers and, of course, briefer questions.

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