Oral Answers to Questions

Alex Cunningham Excerpts

Tuesday 8th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Anne Milton]

My hon. Friend is right. NHS London will continue to fund the TB find-and-treat outreach programme for the homeless and other vulnerable groups, which includes the use of mobile X-ray units. The Department will continue to provide money to support TB Alert, which builds capacity in the voluntary sector and raises awareness.

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

16. What estimate he has made of the average amount of time per week GPs will allocate to the administration of commissioning consortia under his proposals for NHS reform.

[The Minister of State, Department of Health (Mr Simon Burns)]

We anticipate that GPs will focus on the aspects of commissioning that will benefit most from their clinical expertise and understanding of patients’ needs. Only a minority of clinicians will play a hands-on, executive role in consortia. Moreover, they will be able to secure support services to assist with their administrative and commissioning duties.

[Alex Cunningham]

At present, GPs are able to spend only about eight or nine minutes on average with each patient. How can the Secretary of State expect GPs to be meaningfully engaged in commissioning when, unlike him, they are putting patients first?

[Mr Burns]

Unlike the hon. Gentleman, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State actually understands the situation. It is not true that doctors see patients for only eight minutes; GPs see their patients for the length of time that they feel they should see them. The concept that GPs will have their time taken away from looking after patients to do commissioning is not right, because GPs will employ commissioners with expertise to work with them and do the commissioning for them, so that they can get on with looking after their patients.