Waiting List Initiative In Wales

EDM number 417 in 1995-96, proposed by Rhodri Morgan on 13/02/1996.

That this House deplores the unseemly behaviour of Welsh health authorities including family health service authorities in Wales in their desperate search to bring to an end long waiting lists for diagnosis, medical treatment and surgery, both as to their pressure on GP's to remove the patients from the recorded waiting lists where those patients have refused treatment at hospitals outside their own area of residence and treatment at BUPA and other private medical provision, and as regards the pressure brought on patients to attend for surgery at Saturday morning special sessions at NHS hospitals by NHS orthopaedic surgeons but on BUPA-type piecework payment terms for surgeons of ú300 to ú400 per knee or hip operation, using special funds released by authorities like the South Glamorgan Family Health Service Authority under the Waiting List Initiative with the nurses, orderlies and others paid by despicable brown envelope methods entirely unacceptable for the use of taxpayers' money on the National Health Service; furthermore demands that the Secretary of State for Wales restores the principle of orderly conduct and equitable access to the National Health Service in Wales generally and to orthopaedic treatment and joint replacement surgery in South Glamorgan specifically.

This motion has been signed by a total of 34 MPs.