Health: Government Spending
Lord Harris of Haringey Excerpts(14 years, 5 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Earl Howe
My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend. He is right to suggest that we should look not at each body individually but perhaps at several across the piece to see whether there is scope for rationalisation in a way that does not detract from the quality of service.
Lord Harris of Haringey
My Lords, the noble Earl has frequently argued in this House in favour of there being arm’s-length bodies to protect the patient’s interest in the NHS. Will extra resources be found to enable this aspiration of his—and I am sure, of the coalition’s—to be fully funded?
Earl Howe
My Lords, the budgetary implications of our plans are being worked through at the moment but we are clear that we need to have a more powerful patient voice within the system than at present. I believe that that goes hand-in-hand with our agenda for patient choice, greater quality standards and more information being made available to patients to enable them to make choices.