Health and Social Care Update

Baroness Walmsley Excerpts

Monday 10th October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Markham (Con)]

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, for those excellent points. I have to declare a further interest: my wife is not only a dentist, she is a dentist originally from the Dominican Republic who practised in Spain for 20 years before coming here. So many of the excellent points the noble Baroness made are well recognised here. I am in the market for good ideas, so I will meet with the noble Baroness with pleasure to understand and discuss some of the ideas she spoke about.

[Baroness Walmsley (LD)]

My Lords, the health service is suffering from inflation in the same way as the rest of us. Julian Kelly, NHS England’s chief finance officer, told the board recently that it will have to find £20 billion in efficiency savings over the next three years because of the increased cost of goods and services that it buys. He said that

“clearly you have to completely revisit investment in cancer and mental health, primary care … diagnostic capacity and you would have to look at what it meant in total for what the NHS could deliver.”

With that situation, could the Minister say how on earth we are going to deliver the plan for patients?

[Lord Markham (Con)]

As I mentioned earlier, yes, there are inflationary pressures, but as a percentage of our national wealth—our GDP—we are investing more than ever before, at around 12%. That level is very high compared with most other OECD countries. So, the investment and the staffing are there. I think the correct challenge, which I have heard from a number of Members today, is whether we are getting the best performance out of that money and investment. Again, that is very much where I have been brought in—to make sure that we are taking those areas that are performing well and disseminating that good practice. That is where I would like to focus my attention, to make sure that we really are getting the maximum output possible from this record level of investment.