Oral Answers to Questions

David Ruffley Excerpts

Tuesday 26th April 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Burns]

I know that the hon. Lady does not want to mislead the House, but she is totally, factually incorrect in how she paraphrased what I said in the Health and Social Care Bill Committee. As any hon. Member who was there will know, I tried to be helpful to the hon. Member for Leicester West (Liz Kendall)—it is the last time I will—and gave her an illustrative example of how designated services would work. However, I did not say what the hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger) attributed to me.

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

Clinicians at the West Suffolk hospital in Bury St Edmunds are concerned that they will get the same tariff for an operation as a private sector provider, even though the NHS has to carry the cost of training whereas, on the whole, the private sector does not. What steps will the Minister take to address this perceived unfairness?

[Mr Burns]

I should like to reassure my hon. Friend. As he will know, we do not propose to introduce price competition into the NHS; rather, we propose to introduce competition based on quality. His clinicians are correct that the price will be the same. However, they must remember that we are going to stop the practice of the last Government, who, with independent sector treatment centres, paid the private sector over 11% more per operation than they were prepared to pay the national health service.