Oral Answers to Questions

Andy Burnham Excerpts

Tuesday 21st February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Burns]

I am sorry, but the right hon. Gentleman, who always asks this question, is wrong. We have not introduced competition into the NHS; it was there under the previous Administration.

[Andy Burnham (Leigh) (Lab)]

indicated dissent.

[Mr Burns]

It is a bit rich for the former Secretary of State to bleat about that. What I want is the finest health care for patients so that they are treated more effectively and quickly and their long-term conditions are managed in a way that enhances the patient experience.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Lansley]

Let me tell the hon. Gentleman that the average time that in-patients waited for treatment at the time of the last election was 8.4—[Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman asked a question and I am telling him the answer. The average time was 8.4 weeks. That has gone down to 7.7 weeks. For out-patients, the average waiting time was 4.3 weeks at the time of the election. That has gone down to 3.8 weeks. The number of patients waiting for more than 18 weeks at the time of the election was—

[Andy Burnham (Leigh) (Lab)]

A and E.

[Mr Lansley]

I made it very clear after the election that, on clinical advice, we would relax the 98% target to 95%. Patients are being seen within four hours in A and E far more consistently in England than in Wales, where there is a Labour Government. Let me remind the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne) that we have more than halved the number of patients who wait more than a year for treatment since the election.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister of State, Department of Health (Paul Burstow)]

My hon. Friend is right about the need to invest in early intervention and prevention. In addition to the £7.2 billion that we will invest this Parliament, this January we announced an extra £120 million for the remainder of the year to support care services. Furthermore, we are funding, jointly with the Local Government Association, work to support councils in delivering improved productivity and sharing best practice to ensure that they deliver improvements to services, and not just cuts.

[Andy Burnham (Leigh) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State said that he would listen to doctors and nurses but yesterday shut the door of No. 10 Downing street in their faces. But now things take a sinister turn. Let me quote from a letter from an NHS director received last week by a respected clinician of many years’ standing:

“I understand that you are a signatory to a letter which highlights your personal concerns about the Health Bill. It is inappropriate for individuals to raise their personal concerns about the proposed Government reforms. You are therefore required to attend a meeting with the Chief Executive to explain and account for the actions you have recently taken.”

Will he confirm that it is now his policy to threaten NHS staff with disciplinary action if they speak out against his reorganisation?

[Mr Lansley]

No, it is not my policy. I do not know the letter to which the right hon. Gentleman refers, and if he had shown it to me beforehand I could have investigated it. Yesterday, I and the Prime Minister met doctors and medical professionals and they discussed precisely how to improve services for patients. I went to Queen’s hospital in Romford and met nurses, midwives and doctors working to make the trust one in which their public can have confidence and, in due course, a foundation trust. All these things—foundation trusts, clinical commissioning, patient choice—used to be things that he believed in. They are now things that we are achieving but which he has rejected.

[Andy Burnham]

It is, it would seem, the Secretary of State’s new top-down bullying policy, and it is happening right across the NHS. How does he reconcile that with what he used to say about whistleblowing? I remind him of what he once said:

“The first lines of defence against bad practice are the doctors and nurses”,

who

“have a responsibility to their patients to raise concerns if they see risks to patient safety. And when they do, they should be reassured that the Government stands full square behind them.”

Full square behind them so that he can plunge the knife straight into their backs! The truth about his mismanagement of the NHS is coming out: staff bullied into silence, professionals frozen out, crucial information in the risk register—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. We get the gist.