NHS Annual Report and Care Objectives

Derek Twigg Excerpts

Wednesday 4th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I agree that measuring patients’ experience of care is very important. Although there was and continues to be an NHS patients survey, there are many areas of patients’ experience that it did not reflect. For example, we received yesterday the first of the VOICES—views of informal carers for the evaluation of services—a survey of the experience of bereaved families of the quality of end-of-life care that their family member received. That is part of the process of ensuring that for the future we understand, measure and respond to the views of bereaved families about the quality of care they received. That is just one illustration. Another is for the very first time measuring the experience of care reported by young people below the age of 16. There is a complex inter-relationship with the specific benefits of community hospitals in individual locations, but I hope that one of the things we will be able to do is look at the data, which will be disaggregated across the country, and increasingly see what most contributes to the high levels of patient experience in different parts of the country.

[Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)]

I join the Secretary of State in congratulating NHS staff on their hard work and dedication, which is even more remarkable given the disastrous reorganisation they are having to work through at present. The Secretary of State talks about the new era. Can he today in Parliament rule out any additional charges anywhere in the NHS for patients who use the NHS in the next few years?

[Mr Lansley]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I said during the passage of the Health and Social Care Act 2012 that it had been intensively considered in its every aspect. The Act expressly rules out the introduction of any charges across the NHS, other than by further primary legislation, and there is no primary legislation to permit such a thing. So I reiterate the point: there will be no additional charging for treatment in the NHS.