NHS Commissioning Board

Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston Excerpts
Tuesday 5th March 2013

(11 years, 2 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Norman Lamb Portrait Norman Lamb
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I absolutely confirm that the patient’s interest must always trump everything else. Sometimes it is right to challenge existing services which are not providing a good enough service for patients, and we must encourage clinical commissioning groups to do that. Whether poor care is in the public or the private sector, it should always be condemned, and we should always put the interests of the patient first.

Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston Portrait Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)
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If I understood the Minister correctly, he is withdrawing the regulations in order to rewrite them so that we are back where we were under the Labour Government. Does he now wish, with hindsight, that he had never started this?

Norman Lamb Portrait Norman Lamb
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Absolutely not. The legislation and the regulations will faithfully implement our policy intent, which is to put clinicians at the heart of decision making in the NHS and to make the interests of the patient paramount.