Oral Answers to Questions — Health – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 23 March 1993.
Peter Luff
, Worcester
12:00,
23 March 1993
To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many NHS trusts are due to start in the west midlands region in April; and if she will make a statement.
Dr Brian Mawhinney
Minister of State (Department of Health)
From 1 April, 15 units will become operational as national health service trusts in the West Midlands regional health authority. This will bring the total number of trusts in the region to 25.
Peter Luff
, Worcester
I thank my hon. Friend for that answer. I invite him to welcome the application from Worcester royal infirmary and my local ambulance service for trust status from April 1994. Does he agree that this will result in a significant improvement in the quality of health care for my constituents? Bearing in mind that trust hospitals in the West Midlands region have increased the number of patients treated by some 5 per cent. compared with a little over 3 per cent. for the region as a whole, does he agree that it is time that the Labour party applied the test set by the hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook)—that trusts should be judged by the number of patients they treat—and admitted that the Opposition got it wrong and we got it right?
Dr Brian Mawhinney
Minister of State (Department of Health)
My hon. Friend is absolutely right in all the points that he makes, particularly the last one. I have no doubt that his constituents will benefit from the fact that Worcester royal infirmary has applied for fourth-wave trust status. I know that he will be pleased, as I was, to learn that the West Midlands regional health authority has agreed a capital scheme for his district general hospital in Worcester, that it will not be affected by the capital moratorium and that work on it will start soon.
Richard Burden
, Birmingham, Northfield
As the Government are now encouraging extra national health trusts in the west midlands, will the Minister comment on the assurances given by the former chair of West Midlands regional health authority—described by the Secretary of State as someone who has made an outstanding contribution to the health service—who said that no further trusts in the Birmingham area would be supported until a major hospital rebuilding programme was nearing completion because trusts were incompatible with strategic planning? What has changed? Is it the strategic planning which has gone out of the window or is it the hospital rebuilding programme? Or is it just another broken Tory promise?
Dr Brian Mawhinney
Minister of State (Department of Health)
No, it is just another example of the incapability of the Labour party to put the patient first. In terms of the number of patients treated, waiting time figures and the quality of service offered to patients, all the evidence shows that trusts are delivering the quality of service that patients want. From this April, they will become the normal mode of delivering health care in this country. We know that the Opposition do not like that, but patients do.
Secretary of State was originally the title given to the two officials who conducted the Royal Correspondence under Elizabeth I. Now it is the title held by some of the more important Government Ministers, for example the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.
The Opposition are the political parties in the House of Commons other than the largest or Government party. They are called the Opposition because they sit on the benches opposite the Government in the House of Commons Chamber. The largest of the Opposition parties is known as Her Majesty's Opposition. The role of the Official Opposition is to question and scrutinise the work of Government. The Opposition often votes against the Government. In a sense the Official Opposition is the "Government in waiting".
The political party system in the English-speaking world evolved in the 17th century, during the fight over the ascension of James the Second to the Throne. James was a Catholic and a Stuart. Those who argued for Parliamentary supremacy were called Whigs, after a Scottish word whiggamore, meaning "horse-driver," applied to Protestant rebels. It was meant as an insult.
They were opposed by Tories, from the Irish word toraidhe (literally, "pursuer," but commonly applied to highwaymen and cow thieves). It was used — obviously derisively — to refer to those who supported the Crown.
By the mid 1700s, the words Tory and Whig were commonly used to describe two political groupings. Tories supported the Church of England, the Crown, and the country gentry, while Whigs supported the rights of religious dissent and the rising industrial bourgeoisie. In the 19th century, Whigs became Liberals; Tories became Conservatives.
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