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Mr. Hayes: I am delighted to take my hon. Friend's advice on the latest statistics. He is renowned in
 
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Lincolnshire as a champion of the interests of the people of Boston and the surrounding area in respect of health and many other issues, and he is right to say that the NHS staff there and elsewhere do a first-class job. I am sorry to say that one of the smears that has emerged from this debate from Labour Members is the suggestion that Conservatives do not believe in the NHS. Let us put that to bed immediately. My two sons were born in Pilgrim hospital in Boston on the NHS, and I have never had private health treatment in my life. Neither have many other Conservative Members. We believe in the NHS no less than Labour Members. We want an NHS that is effective, that spends money properly and that deals with problems in the best way possible. That is true for MRSA as it is true for many other aspects of health provision.

Let us be straightforward about other facts that the Government challenged—they may be in denial—including the statistics showing that the problem has increased. Reports of bloodstream infections caused by MRSA have increased from 7,384 in 2002–03 to 7,647 in 2003–04 on the latest figures. That is a 3.6 per cent. increase, and we have no reason to believe that the rate of increase has fallen recently.

In the first three years of mandatory surveillance, the number of infections—both methicillin-sensitive and methicillin-resistant—increased, and the number of bloodstream infections caused by the methicillin-sensitive strains increased by 9.2 per cent. in 2002–03. The proportion of blood isolates resistant to methicillin is 44 per cent. in the United Kingdom. It is only 1 per cent. in Denmark; 1 per cent. in the Netherlands; 11 per cent. in Austria; and 23 per cent. in Spain. Only Greece matches the UK figure.

Shona McIsaac: Has the hon. Gentleman also noticed the rates in Japan and the USA? In fact, their rates are higher than the UK's. No one would associate either of those countries with poor hygiene conditions. Again, the picture is complex, which relates to different strains of MRSA.

Mr. Hayes: I know virtually nothing about the health service in the USA or Japan, and it would be entirely inappropriate for me to respond to that intervention in any less honest way.

This is an increasing problem. That fact needs to be recognised, and I hope that the Government will accept that—in raising it from the Opposition Benches in the very bold and comprehensive way that my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) did in his splendid opening remarks—we are not just illustrating a profound concern among Conservative Members but reflecting a profound concern among those people whom we represent. It is not good enough to say that we are scaremongering. My constituents raise the issue with me—I will not say every day, but certainly with alarming regularity. This is a real problem felt by the British people, and it deserves proper scrutiny by the House and an adequate response from the Government.

The Minister said that dealing with hospital cleanliness and MRSA was not a sufficient health policy. Perhaps she is right; this issue obliges us to look at some of the fundamentals about health, and in looking at
 
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them in preparing for the debate, I was alarmed at what I found. For example, it is sometimes claimed that the UK enjoys a similar quality of health care to that of other developed countries, but although indices such as life expectancy are similar, they are affected by many factors other than health care.

A recent study that measured the contribution of the national health care system to health outcomes placed the UK 18th out of the 19 developed countries studied. Similarly, a lot is of made of the Government's achievements in waiting times. It is true that the longest waiting times have fallen, but average waiting times have been little affected by Government policy. On one measure—the average waiting time of people on the list—average waiting times have only just started to fall significantly. On another—the waiting times of patients actually treated in any year—waiting times have actually increased.

Similarly, the Minister accused us of having no policy on mortality from major diseases, such as cancer and heart disease. It is true that deaths from cancer and heart disease have fallen steadily since 1999, but the Office for National Statistics has shown that the falling trend began in 1980 and has been sustained by improvements in lifestyle, particularly the reduction in smoking, improved diet and so on, rather than the extra funding of the past five years.

In summary, the OECD judged the Government's policy on health and concluded that the extra spending had made little difference to the mortality trend. It said:

"In the health sector there are few indicators showing unambiguous improvements in outcomes over and above trend improvements that were already apparent before the surge in spending."

So although the Minister said that we have no interest in those matters, that we have no policy on waiting lists or waiting times, that we are not interested in oncology and that we take no broader view of health, she should now acknowledge that not only is that not so, but when a broader view is taken, the Government's record is rather less rosy than she might suppose or want to suggest.

Miss Melanie Johnson: The hon. Gentleman still has not said anything about his health policy.

Mr. Hayes: Well, the hon. Lady says that from a sedentary position, but she has accused us—as Hansard will show—of not having policies on anything other than clean hospitals. We are interested in such matters and we have policies on them. I mentioned those issues, which are relevant to the motion, because she did.

Miss Johnson: My remarks simply highlighted the fact that the Conservatives have no policies on those various matters. The hon. Gentleman made points about cancer and coronary heart disease, but he gave no indication of what their policies on such matters would be.

Mr. Hayes: The hon. Lady attempts to divert me from the main message that I want to deliver, which is that she needs to take the motion, the subject and the concern of Opposition Members and the British people a little more seriously.
 
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One of my constituents, a woman in her 30s, went into a local hospital for a hysterectomy. Unfortunately, she acquired MRSA, but it was not diagnosed until after she had left hospital. She died eight weeks later. That is the reality of the situation that her family and friends must face, and it explains why the debate must not be taken lightly. We need to step beyond some of the party political knockabout, which I am sorry to say preoccupied the Minister for too much of her speech.

What can be done? We need preventative measures, including a culture change in the attitudes of all those involved in training and managing staff. We need better risk analysis and clean hospitals. When the disease occurs, we need proper responses to it, which means rapid identification, effective isolation, and the most appropriate drugs treatment in terms of both quantities and regime. We also need proper research and science.

An uncourageous attitude to the problem will not make a difference, and not making a difference will cost more lives like that of my constituent. I am not prepared to pay that price and do not think that any hon. Member should be—the Conservative Front Bench certainly is not. I wonder whether the Minister is prepared to pay that price.

6.42 pm

Andrew Mackinlay (Thurrock) (Lab): I am pleased that I have been called to speak, because I have been somewhat frustrated and angry. For several I, like several hon. Members, have drawn attention to the problem of hospital-acquired infections and MRSA, but we have not been listened to appropriately by either Conservative or Labour Ministers. However, for the record, I wish to draw a distinction between Ministers in the early years of the Labour Government and the present Health team. This problem was not addressed at a sufficiently early stage by successive Ministers.

Reference has been made to the causes of MRSA, of which there are many. There can be no doubt that the success of the national health service in having a greater throughput of patients is a contributing factor. One can also cite the slack regime of many medical staff, especially doctors, who should know better. They obviously do not like wearing white coats at present, and although I do not want to emphasise that point, it is indicative of the problem. Further factors are the minimal cleaning of ambulances, because they are used extensively, and the lack of destruction of bed linen and instruments, because of the serious cost implications of doing so.

The Conservative motion invites us to compare the Labour Government's stewardship of the matter with the previous situation. I hope that I am saying this objectively, but I do not think that that can be done. Part of the problem was that no statistics were available under the Conservative Government, which was also the case in the early years of the Labour Government. I draw a distinction between previous Health Ministers and the current ministerial team, because the latter have addressed that problem, albeit late. They have given themselves a presentational problem, because now that we have more accurate reporting, people are saying, "All this is out of hand."

The problem was always there, but it was deliberately suppressed, not so much by Ministers, whether Labour or Tory, but by the people who run the NHS. There was
 
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a conspiracy of silence, which still exists, partly because hospitals and individual practitioners in the health service were worried about litigation. Given the competitive nonsense of star-rated hospitals, naturally people are worried about admitting the extent of infection. There are resource implications. If wards or facilities are closed, that has an impact on waiting lists and so on.

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