To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will reconsider his decision not to approve the nine consultant posts and support staff to the North Staffordshire district health authority out of the funds to alleviate excessive waiting lists.

The new consultant posts provided under the 100 consultants scheme, announced in the White Paper "Working for Patients", were allocated on the basis of criteria set out when bids for these posts were invited. These were that posts should:

(i) reduce long waiting lists and times;

(ii) help reduce junior doctors' hours;

(iii) help improve the career structure in "out of balance specialties.

North Staffordshire's bid for a consultant gynaecologist was successful and is to be funded from April 1990. We will not be reconsidering the distribution of other posts under this scheme.