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Private Sector (NHS)

I am delighted to contribute to the debate, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr. Jones) on raising such an important issue, which has become very hot this week. Some months ago, I asked my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister about MRI scanners at Luton and Dunstable hospital. A certain amount of sand was thrown in my face, but there were no adequate answers. Those scanners have come on-stream this week, but there is no funding for radiographers to operate the second scanner. The first scanner replaced an old scanner, and the second scanner was new. The Government had been encouraging hospitals to increase their scanner capacity, and we are still decades behind many other developed countries. I think that Britain is at the bottom of the league table for numbers of scanners compared with other developed countries, so we need additional capacity. Luton and Dunstable hospital has provided just that. However, money was not set aside for radiographers; it was earmarked for a mobile private scanner at the hospitals in Stevenage and Bedford. That scanner is literally on the back of a lorry. It is not a good service 19 Oct 2005 : Column 281WH and it has been featured on television as such. Patients and funding have been guaranteed, but the service is so poor that patients are often referred back to Luton and Dunstable hospital because the quality of scanning required cannot be provided. That is not a market; it is ideologically driven, to force public money into private pockets at the expense of quality public provision. I raised the matter with a Health Minister. I will not mention the Minister's name, because that would be too embarrassing. I questioned the Minister at length on why that had been done in Luton and why it is being done elsewhere in the country, and after every single answer had been broken down, the only answer was, "Well, people might be able to take advantage of moonlighting staff." In other words, the Government want to persuade a few NHS staff to do a bit of extra overtime in the evenings without telling the hospital that they are doing it.