NHS: Financial Performance

Lord Clarke of Nottingham Excerpts

Monday 12th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Ben Gummer]

I will address the hon. Lady’s final point first, if I may. The previous coalition Government’s 2012 Act has saved considerable numbers—billions of pounds—which we would now have to make up if we had not made difficult decisions.

That allows me to address the hon. Lady’s first point. We have a choice: we can take the traditional view of politicians, which is to try to paper over the cracks and pour money into an unreformed system, or we can take the difficult decisions that will mean that we deliver patient care in the long term. That is what the Conservative party is willing to do: we are not only providing the commitment to funding, but taking the necessary, difficult decisions.

On the specific issue of agency nurses—one such example of difficult decisions—it is not so much the number of nurses available as the scandalous rates at which they were hired out to NHS trusts. We have taken action on that to ensure that NHS providers can procure agency staff when and how they need them at a reasonable rate.

[Mr Kenneth Clarke (Rushcliffe) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend confirm that there have been no cuts in expenditure on the health service and that there have been no cuts in the total level of service? The problems at the moment are caused by the extraordinary pressures of an ageing population, clinical advances and rising public expectations. Will he continue to get the right balance between the needs of greater efficiency and responsible public financing, putting patient interests first and resisting short-term lobbying from trouble spots, which is a permanent feature of the politics of the NHS? In particular, will he resist any attempts by organisations such as the British Medical Association to turn controversy into yet another pay claim?

[Ben Gummer]

I thank my right hon. and learned Friend for his assurances on what needs to be done: he, more than anyone in the House, knows how to do it. Had the Government taken the Opposition’s advice and cut the money going into the NHS, we would not have achieved record numbers of doctors and nurses; we would not have halved MRSA and clostridium difficile rates; we would not have eliminated mixed-sex wards; and we would not have achieved record high cancer survival rates. All that has been made possible because of the funding commitments that the Government have made, to which the Opposition failed to commit at the election.