Hospitals, Brighton and Health Services (Report)

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 8 August 1966.

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Photo of Bernard Braine Bernard Braine , Essex South East 12:00, 8 August 1966

No. On this point I am not putting forward any official ideas. I am speaking for myself.

The hon. Gentleman is right in correcting me because what I was suggesting was not one of Porritt's recommendations. In suggesting the setting up of a health board within each sizeable county or county borough, linked with local authorities and charged with the duty of administering an integrated service, I am merely bringing together the concept of Porritt and the desirability of having some elected element brought in so that the whole structure can become democratic.

I am, therefore, throwing out these ideas in the hope that the Minister will do what the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton (Dr. David Owen) asked him to do; with or without clothes, to take a dive into the deep end and grasp the nettle—although I do not see how he could do both at once—and make the position clear. What we are trying to do is to persuade the Minister to respond to these suggestions.

Sooner or later, administrative reform must come; the hon. Gentleman admits that. He did not go into great detail, but I suggest that if administrative reform comes, and there is integration, it must be an integration that involves all three parts of the Service, not missing out the local authority health and welfare services. Indeed, I cannot envisage a situation in which the local authorities would agree to a surrender of their very valuable functions unless there was an integration in which they themselves could take part.

I come to the one suggestion that we on this side would officially make, and that is that there should be experiment. Why should there not be experiment? Do we not have regions and cities with great civic and regional pride, and with a great tradition of co-operation? I shall not name any specifically—we all have great cities in our mind. I look at the hon. Lady the Member for Liverpool, Exchange (Mrs. Braddock) at the moment—Liverpool might make an admirable place for experiment of this kind. We would welcome, therefore, some indication from the Minister that he has the imagination and the courage to think along these lines. With or without his clothes, we invite him to take the plunge.