Defending Public Services

Chris Leslie Excerpts

Monday 23rd May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

My right hon. and learned Friend speaks with great wisdom, as he did during the junior doctors’ strike. Perhaps that is based on his experience of featuring in a BMA poster, which was put up across the country, as someone who ignored medical advice, because he smoked his cigar.

My right hon. and learned Friend is absolutely right. The crucial issue for the future of the NHS is the simple statistic that by the end of this Parliament we will have 1 million more over-70s to look after in England, and their needs are very different from those of the population whom we had to look after 20, 30 or 40 years ago. In particular, their need to be looked after well at home, before they need expensive hospital treatment, is a transformation. That is why a core part of what we are doing is to transform the services offered in mental health and in general practice, which I will come on to a bit later.

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

While the Secretary of State is talking about transformation, let me say that I agree with the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke) that we have to start focusing on quality. In the east midlands, for example, the ambulance service has just been judged by the Care Quality Commission to be inadequate when it comes to patient safety. Things are in a real state of difficulty in our NHS. Ambulance services need improvement; what is he going to do about it?

[Mr Hunt]

I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman. In fact, I wanted to come on to talk about that perceived tension between money and the quality of care. Until three years ago, we did not have an independent inspection regime to go around ambulance services and tell the service, the public, constituents and Members of Parliament how good the quality of care is in each area. The first step is to have that inspection regime so that we know the truth, and then things start to happen, as is beginning to be the case in ambulance services across the country.

The big point—this is precisely what I wanted to move on to—is the worry, which is shared by many people, that an efficiency ask of this scale might impact on patient care. They should listen to the chief inspector of hospitals, Professor Sir Mike Richards, who points out that financial rigour is one of the routes to excellent quality, and that there is a positive correlation between hospitals offering the best care and those with the lowest deficits. In other words, it is not a choice between good care and good finances; we need both.