Oral Answers to Questions

Emma Reynolds Excerpts

Tuesday 25th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

My hon. Friend enables me to say that I and my colleagues entirely understand and endorse the stronger role that pharmacies can play, including by assisting with the provision of services such as minor ailments services and medicines use reviews, which will be commissioned through arrangements led by the NHS commissioning board. In addition, the services that he describes, such as stop smoking services, will be commissioned as part of the public health efforts, which will be led by local authorities through their local health improvement plans.

[Emma Reynolds (Wolverhampton North East) (Lab)]

Will the Secretary of State comment on the apparent conflict between, on the one hand, a general practitioner being an advocate for their patient and taking purely clinical decisions and, on the other hand, GPs having to allocate resources in the new system? Will that conflict not lead to a breakdown of trust in the relationship between the GP and their patients?

[Mr Lansley]

I am afraid the hon. Lady sees a conflict where, to GPs, there is none. It is their responsibility—[Interruption.] No, their first duty is always to their patients, whose best interests they must secure. When she has an opportunity to look at the Health and Social Care Bill, which we published last week, she will see that it makes very clear the duty to improve quality and continuously to improve standards. We all know that we have to achieve that with finite resources, but we will do that much better when we let clinical leaders influence directly how those resources are used rather than letting a management bureaucracy tell them how to do it.