Oral Answers to Questions

David Tredinnick Excerpts

Tuesday 26th April 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

I am not sure that I necessarily subscribe to the hon. Gentleman’s premise. This issue is important and it warrants the kind of attention that we are giving to it, and there is an opportunity to listen, reflect and improve the Bill because we want to ensure that we can thereby strengthen the NHS. On strengthening the NHS, I am surprised that the hon. Gentleman did not take the opportunity to refer to the £12.9 million increase in the budget for Tameside and Glossop PCT this year—something that Labour would not have offered. The truth is that we are going to strengthen the NHS through the Health and Social Care Bill, as we are strengthening it through our commitment to the priorities of the NHS.

[David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)]

Has my right hon. Friend had any further thoughts on the effect of HealthWatch England’s representatives being included in local health and wellbeing boards? Does he think that the provisions are sufficiently robust to ensure that they have an impact on commissioning?

[Mr Lansley]

As my hon. Friend knows, we intend health and wellbeing boards to bring together HealthWatch, plus councillors, commissioning bodies and providers, as part of the process of local representation, so that we can link up NHS commissioning with public health and social care, to see how they collectively meet the joint strategic needs assessment led by the local authority.