Oral Answers to Questions

Frank Dobson Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

Yes, I entirely understand my hon. Friend’s point and we have discussed this at Burnley. I feel strongly—indeed, I know—that we must continue to apply the tests that I have set out for such issues of configuration, including that they will deliver improving clinical outcomes, be safe for patients and, as he rightly says, reflect the commissioning intentions of local GPs representing local patients.

[Frank Dobson (Holborn and St Pancras) (Lab)]

How can it possibly be right that the world-renowned staff at Great Ormond Street hospital in my constituency face, under this proposition, a reduction of £16 million in the funding of that hospital? NHS funding is supposed to be ring-fenced, but from the point of view of people at Great Ormond Street, it seems to be rather more ringed than fenced.

[Mr Lansley]

The right hon. Gentleman must realise that if we had listened to the Labour party in the comprehensive spending review, we would have cut the NHS budget, but we did not. We resisted the Labour party’s proposal, and resources for the NHS will increase in real terms, but there is then the matter of how those resources should be deployed to best effect. The application of the proposal—we have still to agree with children’s hospitals on how it will be applied—would have the overall effect of reducing Great Ormond Street’s total income by less than 2%.