NHS Personnel — 19 May 1999

I beg to move,

That this House notes the proposal of Her Majesty's Government to raise the agreed working hours of junior doctors to 65 per week; notes also its failure to deliver to nurses the pay increases which were promised to be implemented in full from April 1999; notes further the anxiety and disappointment caused to consultants by its failure to implement the recommendations of the Pay Review Body; notes the concerns of Professions Allied to Medicine; and calls upon Her Majesty's Government to recognise that increased expectations followed by disappointment have profoundly damaged morale among loyal and hardworking NHS staff.

Is she surprised to learn that, in Staffordshire and the west midlands, people are becoming very disturbed by the huge influx of Egyptian and other consultants who do not speak adequate English, replacing English doctors who have left the NHS?

I beg to move, To leave out from "House" to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof:

"recognises and applauds the massive contribution the staff make to providing the fairest and most efficient healthcare system in the world; regrets the shambles in the NHS that the Government inherited which was demoralising to staff and damaging to patients; welcomes the action the new Government has taken to make things better for staff and patients alike, including £21 billion extra for the NHS over the next three years, record capital investment in new buildings, equipment and facilities to enable the staff to provide top-quality care, the biggest real-terms pay rise for nurses for 10 years paid nationally in full, proposals for radical pay reform to give fairer rewards to staff who extend their roles, widen their skills and work in teams to care for patients, negotiations on a new consultants' contract to ensure rewards go to those who contribute most to the NHS, ambitious targets to improve the quality of the working lives of NHS staff, including tough action to crack down on violence and racism at work, the promotion of family-friendly employment policies and investment in training and continuing professional development; welcomes the Government's commitment to reducing junior doctors' hours in line with the draft European Working Time Directive vehemently opposed by the Conservative Party and carefully planned so as not to damage improvements in patient care; and accepts no lectures about conditions of service for NHS personnel from a Party that did more in Government to demoralise the staff than any other in living memory and which spends most of its time in Opposition running down the achievements of the NHS staff and saying the Health Service can no longer cope."

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I beg to move, That the Question be now put--we do not want to listen to that.

Mr. Deputy Speaker:

Order. I call the Minister.

Question, That the Question be now put, put and agreed to.

Question put accordingly , That the original words stand part of the Question:--

The House divided: Ayes 167, Noes 339.

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