Oral Answers to Questions

Chris Leslie Excerpts

Tuesday 29th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I was here just a few weeks ago, announcing a public inquiry into the events at Stafford general hospital. Of course, in that hospital the adherence to ticking the box on the four-hour target was one of the things that contributed to the most appalling care of patients. We have to focus on delivering proper care for patients—the right treatment at the right time in the right place—and delivering the best outcomes for them. We will focus on that—on quality—not on top-down process targets.

[Chris Leslie (Nottingham East) (Lab/Co-op)]

Is it really true that the coalition Government are going to scrap the right for people to see their GP within 48 hours? If so, will the Secretary of State publicise that, so people know that the right has been reduced? If it is true, is he not just axing public service quality under the pretence of dealing with so-called bureaucracy?

[Mr Lansley]

It is astonishing—the Labour Government spent money trying to achieve the GP access target, and the hon. Gentleman might at least have recognised that the latest data, published two or three weeks ago, show that public satisfaction with access to their GPs, and the things that the Labour Government had been paying for, had actually gone down. A consequence of the 48-hour access target was that patients were unable to access their GPs more than 48 hours in advance. Is it not reasonable to expect GPs to be able to manage their own services in order to deliver better patient experience and outcomes across the board? I think we can reasonably expect that.