NHS Annual Report and Care Objectives

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Wednesday 4th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

Yes, I could not agree more. It was precisely because Professor Sir Mike Richards undertook an inquiry and produced a report identifying a lack of access in this country to new cancer medicines in the first year after their introduction that we instituted the cancer drugs fund. It is a matter of considerable regret to many of us that that example was not followed in a similar way in Wales.

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

What message does the Secretary of State have for the 2 million people in west London, four of whose nine major hospitals are set to lose their A and E departments, including both Hammersmith and Charing Cross, in my constituency? That is the Secretary of State’s policy. He cannot pass the buck to the NHS on this or, indeed, on the threat to the Royal Brompton hospital’s children’s services; he has to answer for it.

[Mr Lansley]

No. Let me reiterate to the hon. Gentleman the point I have just made, because what he describes is not my policy. If there are proposals, they are proposals that have been generated in north-west and west London, and the safe and sustainable review is an independent review. It is not establishing the Government’s policy; it is an independent review in the NHS, looking at how services can be improved.

The review was not in any sense about costs; it was entirely about how we sustain the highest quality of excellent care for patients. The same will be—needs to be—true in relation to services in west London for emergency care. I will not go through this all again, but I reiterate that, if people object and say that such an aim will not be achieved, it is open to a local authority to refer the matter to a mere Secretary of State on the basis that the tests I have set down have not been met.