NHS Future Forum

David Ruffley Excerpts

Tuesday 14th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

No, I do not accept that. The Prime Minister’s commitments are absolutely what the public and the people working in the NHS expect and wish to see. They are vital, and they would not have been true under a Labour Government. For example, a Labour Government would not have increased resources for the NHS. The only part of the United Kingdom where there is now a Labour Government is Wales, where resources for the NHS are being cut this year by 5% in real terms compared with last year. When I went to north Wales in the middle of the recess, I saw on the front page of the Liverpool Daily Post that the number of patients waiting more than 36 weeks for their operations had risen from 16 to 989.

[Mr David Ruffley (Bury St Edmunds) (Con)]

I welcome the proposals, but will the Secretary of State give details of the safeguards against cherry-picking of the kind that, if unchecked, could fatally undermine rural district hospitals such as the West Suffolk hospital in my constituency?

[Mr Lansley]

Yes; we have to ensure that commissioners are increasingly able to use a tariff involving an established national or local price to determine the service that they commission, and that that does not allow the private sector—or anyone else, for that matter—to cherry-pick services by undercutting on price. We also need to ensure that that price reflects the cost of the treatment for the conditions involved, including complex conditions. This is why we have committed to carry out work, not least with the Royal Colleges, to identify where we need to develop tariffs in order to ensure that that happens.