When was leighton hospital built

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Work is now well underway as a result the government funding Mid Cheshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust received last year to reconfigure and expand emergency care services. The new build is also great news for staff, as they are set to benefit from an extended employee and overflow carpark, which includes more than new spaces.

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They must also have completed their third shift within two months of being signed off General terms It is your responsibility to ensure that you provide us will correct and relevant information when filling out our referral form. This hospital will have a direct effect on the quality of care within the NHS. It has been set up in such a way that there is no transparency in its financial arrangements, and it has now taken on its staff someone who has detailed knowledge of the running of the NHS.

That is very important, because it is money from the NHS that will create the viability of this unit. The company has already been given considerable contracts for providing certain care for NHS patients, and it is the number of people who will be pushed into this unit that will, in the final analysis, make the difference to its economics. It goes much wider than that, however. The ambulance service was saying, in effect that, if people did not fully qualify for an ambulance—I do not know how that is justified, because that must imply that people using the ambulances have no right to do so—and if there was a need to make swingeing cuts, one of the things that could be said was that 50 per cent.

So it becomes very clear that what happens at Leighton will affect us right across the board. Certainly, the way the establishment is run in relation to the private hospital is affecting us across the board. I do not expect the Minister to give me detailed answers to what are real problems, but I want to make it clear that if we are to talk within the NHS about partnership, we have to face one basic question.

Crown land is not assessed in the normal way in dealing with the creation of a new hospital. That is what has happened here. How those assets are assessed must materially affect the viability of the projects. Contracts between people working within the NHS and private contractors must carry with them at least some protection for the NHS over a period of years.

Most professional organizations—doctors are no exception—insist that written into the contracts of people employed should be undertakings that they will not carry with them into exactly the same area in which they have operated the expertise that they have gained without some protection for their previous employer.

It is not good enough for the Department of Health to say only that that is entirely the responsibility of the district health authority. It is also vital that we have an urgent investigation into the general management of Leighton hospital. There are considerable difficulties with the staff there.

There is a great deal of unease. The regrading of the nurses is only one example of the problem of morale, which has been exacerbated, becoming barely tolerable for many staff. In short, if private companies are to be allowed to go into the NHS, I want to know who investigates their viability, who demonstrates their expertise, who tells us where they have come from and what ability they have.

I have already investigated three other companies that were applying for geriatric care within the same health authority, only to find that two of them were directly connected and, even more interestingly, that one of the companies had put in a high tender for the service and one had put in a low one. When I made it clear that I knew the connection between the two companies, strangely enough one of the tenders was withdrawn.

I take a great deal of care about investigating the private firms that are interested in coming into the NHS, but I want a simple assurance from the Minister that there should be no deals with the NHS unless the criteria that apply would be acceptable to the Public Accounts Committee or the House of Commons as being completely open and transparent. We would not accept less in any other area, and I see no reason why we should accept less in the NHS.

The matter of Crown land must be looked at, how it is assessed, how the deals are entered into and what the implications are. Private companies must not come in, milking the NHS for all the facilities that they can lay hands on, using NHS patients to improve their facilities and promising to provide many new services with high-powered equipment, but in fact using the NHS for their own purposes without demonstrating any comparable improvement in facilities for my constituents.

It is not good enough to talk about the gain to my district health authority without being able to provide all the relevant facts on the other side of the equation. Above all, I ask that the management and the immediate past management should be investigated urgently so that never again will people who negotiate financial deals suddenly reappear on the other side for the private company concerned, working within the Crewe district health authority. That is offensive, and I have considerable doubts about the professionalism or the responsibility of companies that allow that to happen.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich Mrs. Dunwoody on obtaining this Adjournment debate and presenting her arguments so clearly. I shall spend a short time on the general subject of private hospitals in the NHS and then deal with some of the points that the hon.

Lady has raised. She has kindly said that she does not expect me to answer all the points that she has raised tonight. I shall try to answer as many as possible, but if I cannot answer them all in the time available I shall read the Official Report carefully with my officials and write to her. The Government very much welcome the contribution of the private sector to the totality of provision for health care.

Such a contribution should be regarded as adding to the total resources devoted to health care and offering flexibility to health authorities in the delivery of services. Government policy, therefore, is to encourage partnership between the National Health Service and the private health sector when this is a cost-effective way of providing or extending services. Many constructive arrangements already operate to the benefit of NHS patients, but there is scope for much more. Innovative approaches from private organisations are welcome, particularly where they accord with overall policy objectives.

If a profit-making organisations can give the NHS better value for money there is no reason to put artificial barriers in the way. Equally if the NHS generates income by selling services to the private sector it should be given every encouragement, always provided, of course, that there is no detriment to the NHS.

I must take issue with the hon. She, perhaps, did not mean to imply that all partnership arrangements between the private sector and the NHS could be typified as milking the NHS or using it for private profit. I assume that she was making her criticisms specifically in relation to the transaction at Crewe. Does the Minister think that people enter into agreements with the NHS to make money for themselves or to provide a service on the generous basis of wishing to serve humanity?

Private companies enter into partnerships with the NHS not only to make money—which is the nature of private companies—but to do so in co-operation with the NHS.

That broadens the choice available to patients and enhances total patient care. In my judgment, the two are not incompatible.

Against this background, individual health authorities must decide for themselves whether to enter into contractual arrangements with private health care organisations and establishments.

To answer the first of the hon. Lady's points, it is the responsibility of the local health authority—in this case the district health authority to satisfy itself about the credibility, reputation and standing of any organisation with which it wishes to do business. That is where the responsibility should be exercised.

It is not my responsibility to pass judgment on each transaction. In coming to such a decision—that is the partnership between the private company and the NHS—health authorities will need to take a great many factors into account in determining the feasibility of such arrangements in the light of local needs and priorities. Cost will, of course, be an important consideration but by no means the only one. Ultimately, it is all done for the benefit of patients. I shall now turn to the particular circumstances of Crewe and the questions that the hon.

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