NHS Reorganisation

Andrew Percy Excerpts

Wednesday 17th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[John Healey]

The GP fundholding experiment took place in a completely different context—within an NHS that still had an area-based plan and still had bodies accountable through the Secretary of State to Parliament. In the end, however, it did not work and we stopped it.

[Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman accept that there is some kind of ideological disagreement going on in his own mind, given that the last Labour Government did exactly the same thing to head teachers by bringing alternative providers into schools and giving them control over budgets and what services to deliver? Our proposals for GPs are exactly the same—aiming to put in charge the professionals who deliver services and have contact with the people who use them.

[John Healey]

I thought the hon. Gentleman was in his place at the start of the debate. In that case, he will have heard me say that one reason for having an Opposition day debate on both health and education is that we see many of the same ideological fingerprints over the plans for education and for health. These are Tory ideological fingerprints, and I hope that this will become clearer as the debate progresses.

Let us make no mistake: if these changes go ahead, patients will rightly question whether GPs’ decisions are about the best treatment for them or about the best interest of the GP budget and consortium business. The public will find “commercial in confidence” stamped over many of the most important decisions taken about our NHS services. Members of Parliament wanting to hold Ministers to account in future when hospitals go bust, there are no contracted services for constituents or there is a serious failure in the system will be told, “It’s nothing to do with me”.