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Summer Recess Adjournment

I was very disturbed to hear the story about the constituent of the hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew) who spilled some beer over Nick Griffin. I am vice-chairman of the all-party beer group. The hon. Member for Leeds, North-West (Greg Mulholland) is the chairman of the Save the Pub group. All I can say is, "What a dreadful waste of beer." I take on board the serious point made by the hon. Gentleman. If people were beaten up every time beer was spilled, there would be hardly any room in the accident and emergency department of any hospital in this country. I hope that the person concerned is able to pursue the matter. I hope that the House will not adjourn until we have had the opportunity to discuss the issue of Mr. John Siddall and his deceased wife who, in September 2004, went to Menorca. What happened to Mrs. Siddall there, and the repercussions since on Mr. Siddall, are of relevance to each and every Member of Parliament, particularly as we are now in the summer season and people are looking forward to their package holidays and generally to going abroad. Mr. and Mrs. Siddall were an ageing couple, and we should bear in mind that we now have an ageing population in this country. They went to Menorca to enjoy a holiday. Sadly, Mrs. Siddall was taken ill. Mr. Siddall did not know what to do about that in Menorca, so he contacted the hotel front desk and the hotel doctor was called. He had a look at Mrs. Siddall and decided she should be admitted to hospital. Instead of admitting her to the appropriate hospital, however, she was taken past the state hospital to a private hospital. Mr. Siddall was concerned about his wife and does not speak Spanish, and he did not know exactly what was happening in terms of the diagnosis of Mrs. Siddall during this period. Later, it became obvious to him that Mrs. Siddall was not getting any better in this private hospital. She was then finally moved to the state hospital, which had the right people with the right equipment. Sadly however, it was all too late and three days later she died. On further investigation, we found that this problem affects a growing number of people in this country who holiday abroad. The last thing people think about doing when they are planning to go abroad is check out the local hospitals and the facilities available. They are going abroad to enjoy themselves. There are suspicions about what has happened in this case. I have spoken to a number of people about it and I have visited the British medical emergency service forum, which deals with such situations on a daily basis, and I have learned that there is often a web of money involved in the choice of hospitals in certain countries. Spain is mentioned time and again, but so are Bulgaria, Greece and a few other countries. In terms of this web of money, I am not making accusations against the tour operator, but there are suspicions about some individuals. There might be suspicions that there is money in it for the doctor to send the patient to the private hospital. There might also be money in it for the receptionist and for a taxi driver. Many different people might be on the take to ensure that the person is put into the private hospital where the money is paid. Last year in Spain, consular staff were involved in dealing with the deaths of 1,500 people. To put that in context, the figure for Germany was 75, in France it was 170, and in the United States of America it was just 121. Therefore, 1,500 is a huge number. We know that a lot of British people visit Spain and others live there, and people might go and stay with those ex-pats as well. I have talked to some emergency service experts, and they believe that in many cases people should be going to the state hospital, irrespective of the fact that they might have fantastic private health care cover. They are not going to know that the private hospital might not have the right facilities. They are not going to know that the medical staff in the private hospital might not be trained to the same level as those in the state hospital. They might also think that the private hospitals are jolly good, and they might have always dreamed of going to such a hospital and believe that that is the right place to go; but the fact is that it is not. The emergency service forum has speculated that perhaps as many as 400 people a year die because they get sent to the wrong place where they are misdiagnosed or are just dealt with inappropriately. We need action; I know that the emergency service forum wants action. It wants the tour operators to speak to the Government and the insurance companies to ensure that when people go abroad and something goes wrong, the tour operators follow a set procedure in order that people get to the right hospital. I am sure that the local tour operator will know the best restaurants, tourist activities and car rental companies. They should also know the right hospital to go to, so that if someone who is booked on a holiday with the company falls ill, they get taken to the right hospital. They must not get shipped off to a place where people are coining it at the expense of others. People must not become victims, becoming too ill and then sadly dying as a result of not being dealt with properly. Mr. Siddall has to carry this with him for the rest of his life, and he is doing so. We clearly want justice for him, but what he wants is to ensure that a procedure is put in place so that this never again happens to anybody going abroad on holiday. I hope that the Deputy Leader of the House will refer to this in her winding-up speech and will ensure that the message gets out to the Foreign Office, the Department of Health and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport that there is clearly a serious problem that needs to be addressed and that, at this holiday time, action is urgently needed and should be happening now.