Health and Social Care Bill

Frank Dobson Excerpts

Tuesday 20th March 2012 Commons Chamber

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

The national health service is probably the most precious institution in this country. It is vital to millions of our fellow citizens—its hospitals treated nearly 10 million people last year—and so no one should take risks with it. The Prime Minister decided to take such risks, he told a private meeting of Conservatives, because the NHS was in an “invisible crisis”. Well, all I can say to the Prime Minister is that it is invisible because there is not one. The NHS is not in crisis; it is doing remarkably well, and it needs to continue to improve. The Prime Minister also said that he was willing to “take a hit” in this regard. No Labour Member cares very much whether he does or not: what we are bothered about is that we do not want the national health service to take a hit; we do not want its precious, hard-working staff to take a hit; and we do not want its patients to take a hit.

Government Members—or those in the majority party—call themselves conservatives, but actually they are a party of chancers. Real conservatives recognise that the outcome of change is unpredictable, that the process of change can be troublesome, and that there are often unexpected consequences of change, and they therefore need convincing that there is a good case for the change. Clearly, the Government have not made such a case.

[Mr David Evennett (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Con)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Frank Dobson]

No.

The Government have not made such a case for change. They have not convinced the 1 million-odd people in the national health service that these changes are needed, and if they cannot convince the people on whom the service is going to depend, they are taking a real chance with its future.

The Prime Minister attributes his commitment to competition, including outside competition, to some of the most worthless and shallow research that has ever been conducted at the London School of Economics—and that puts it in a pretty extreme category. The researchers said that they identified that hospitals they claimed competed with one another had achieved a 7% improvement in the period for which patients awaiting an operation had to wait once they got into hospital. A 7% improvement is a period of less than an hour. Then, without any justification whatever, they generalised from the particular and said that the hospitals they claimed competed with one other were 7% more efficient right across the board. It is on that basis that the Prime Minister says that he wants to introduce competition into our national health service.

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

rose—

[Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Frank Dobson]

No, I will not give way, even to the hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George), who has made a very honourable contribution to these debates.

Across the board, we see the Government taking unjustified risks with our national health service. If they are not prepared to disclose to the rest of us what risks they have been advised they are bringing about, they are both cowardly and stupid. I do not think that the people of this country will ever forgive them for their reckless, chancy, dodgy, second-hand-car-salesman approach to the national health service.