NHS Reorganisation Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department of Health and Social Care
David Lammy
Main Page: David Lammy (Labour - Tottenham)Department Debates - View all David Lammy's debates with the Department of Health and Social Care
(14 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Lansley
I have already given way to the right hon. Gentleman, and I am now going to conclude rapidly.
Contrary to what the right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne said, we have heard organisations from right across the NHS supporting the principles of the White Paper. The British Medical Association says that it
“strongly supports greater clinical involvement in the design and management”
of the health service.
The Royal College of Nursing said:
“The principles on which the proposed reforms are based—placing patients at the heart of the NHS, focusing on clinical outcomes and empowering health professionals—are both welcome and supported by the RCN.”
The King’s Fund said that it
“strongly supports the aims of the White Paper”.
The National Association of Primary Care described the White Paper as
“a unique opportunity to raise the bar in the commissioning and delivery of care for patients.”
The chairman of the NHS Alliance said that it provides
“a unique opportunity for frontline GPs... to make a real difference to the health of their patients”
The Foundation Trust Network said:
“the vision for the NHS articulated in the White Paper is the right one—putting patients and carers at the centre”.
The right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne made a number of specific points. He said that the reforms were an ideological gamble. Well, if they are, they are based on an ideology once shared by the Labour party; and if there is an ideology, it is the belief that patients and clinicians in the health service know best. That is not a gamble at all; it is a certainty.
The right hon. Gentleman talked about reorganisation, but he did not say that the number of managers in primary care trusts rose all the way through to last year in the face of the impending crisis in finances over which the Labour Government presided. He did not tell us that last year primary care trusts spent £261 million on consultancy—an 80% increase in such expenditure in two years.
The right hon. Gentleman gave us the benefit of some of his figures—some of his dodgy numbers—so let me give him a real number. Our decisions to cut the cost of management and administration in the NHS will release £1.9 billion of savings a year by 2014-15. That money will be reinvested directly to support front-line care, so there will be not only a real increase in the resources available to the NHS, but a real change and increase in the resources that get to the front line, because we are cutting the costs of administration and back offices.
Let me make this clear—
Mr Lansley
No.
Against all the advice from the Opposition, we protected the NHS budget in the spending review. It was a brave decision for a Government to take in such circumstances, but it underlined our commitment as a coalition to the NHS. It was a decision that went contrary to the advice and recommendations of the Opposition. For the right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne to try to attack the Government over “cuts”—he used that word—in the present circumstances is pure opportunism.
The right hon. Gentleman will not say whether he backs our NHS budget. He talked about what the shadow Chancellor is supposed to have said, but it was the shadow Chancellor who specifically said that he did not support our proposals to increase the NHS budget. Does the right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne support our cancer drugs fund or not? He did not say. Does he back our integration of health and social care and the resources that we will use through the NHS to support social care and local authorities? He has not said.
The right hon. Gentleman has not said whether the Opposition oppose or support our commitment to the NHS. How could he? The Leader of the Opposition said before the spending review that he would publish his alternative proposals, but he never did so. The Opposition were promised it, but it did not happen. Without a plan for the economy and for public services, the right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne can say nothing about the NHS.
Our commitment to the NHS is clear. We have made tough choices on public spending so that we can protect the NHS and ensure that the sick do not pay for Labour’s debt crisis—