NHS: Budget

Lord Warner Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My noble friend makes an extremely good point. Much of the thrust of what we are trying to do is to achieve much greater local ownership by clinicians, staff and managers of the problems that we can all identify. The ideas that my noble friend has put forward already operate in many trusts, but they should be imposed more widely.

[Lord Warner]

My Lords, in his review will the Minister encourage his ministerial colleagues to enhance the coalition Government’s reputation for taking tough decisions by looking seriously at the number of acute hospitals that are failing financially and are unsustainable, especially in London? Is he willing to market-test the provider side of PCTs, which the Department of Health has identified as inefficient?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, the noble Lord, with his knowledge of London, speaks with great authority and he will know that reconfiguration is high on the agenda in London. Efficiencies can be created, but we want to see local buy-in to those changes rather than any top-down prescription. On his second point, we are keen on the split between the commissioning and the provision of community services, so that we can get greater plurality of provision in community services.