NHS Reorganisation

David Evennett Excerpts

Wednesday 16th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[John Healey]

The hon. Gentleman needs to read some of the material for himself, rather than just reading the briefings provided by his Whips and his Front-Bench team. Some of the 52 organisations that this Government and the Health Secretary claim supported the Bill have written to me saying that far from supporting the principles of the Bill, they have “grave concerns” about the White Paper; that was said by the Patients Association. The Chartered Society of Physiotherapy has said:

“We have been very clear that we have grave concerns about the scope and speed of the structural changes proposed”.

Diabetes UK, Cancer Research UK, the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists and others do not take kindly to being misrepresented by Ministers as supporting this Bill when they have such grave concerns.

[Mr David Evennett (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Con)]

I always thought that the right hon. Gentleman was a reformer at heart, but he obviously is not, given what he is saying today. Why did productivity in our hospitals decline by 15% during the 13 years of the Labour Government, while bureaucracy increased?

[John Healey]

One of the problems—we all know this, and the new Government will be faced with it in exactly the same way—is exactly how to measure productivity in the NHS. Given the complexity of what is provided for patients—and the requirement to put together packages of care to help people recover from serious illness and live independently is so complex—it is hard to do that. The NHS just is not like a commercial business, which is what this Government want to turn it into.