Times Health Commission

Baroness Pitkeathley Excerpts

Thursday 19th January 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Markham (Con)]

My experience of royal commissions is that they take a couple of years to report. I do not want to wait a couple of years. I want to get on with it now. We have some very good minds in the department working on it, with access to all of this. I am always willing to take on new ideas from new minds but we do not need a two-year report; we need action now.

[Baroness Pitkeathley (Lab)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that, in any investigation of health and social care, the voices of patients and users must be loud and strong? How are the Government going to ensure that this happens?

[Lord Markham (Con)]

Clearly, the patient has to be at the centre of everything. That is what the plan for patients is about. It is also what patient choice is about; we are using other ways to make sure that people can get treatment quickly when they need to. It involves using the independent sector, as pioneered by colleagues in this House, and learning lessons from that so that we can get on top of waiting lists, which we all agree we need to do.