NHS Reform

Gerry Sutcliffe Excerpts

Monday 4th April 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. In Burnley and other places—I think not least of Maidstone—decisions were made in the past, under a Labour Government, that clearly did not meet the tests that we now apply, which are about public engagement, the support of the local authority, engagement with general practices leading commissioning, the clinical case and the responsiveness to patient choice. Those tests will be met in future. As we go through the painful process of examining how they are applied to the situations that we have inherited, on occasion we can say things to help colleagues, but sometimes we cannot.

[Mr Gerry Sutcliffe (Bradford South) (Lab)]

It is not only the Health Secretary who cares about the NHS. Most people in the House support the NHS in their constituencies and the work that it carries out, but the mistakes that the Secretary of State has made—I hope he will admit that he has made mistakes by not listening—mean that there will already be costs to the health service because of the Bill. Will he publish an impact assessment of the costs to the health service so far of his failed policies?

[Mr Lansley]

I am afraid the hon. Gentleman is wrong on a number of counts. First, we have listened and we will continue to listen. Secondly, of course there are costs in reducing the number of managers in the NHS, but it is absolutely essential that we reverse the decade of declining productivity in the NHS that took place as the number of managers went up by 78%. How can that be the right way forward? Under Labour, we had more managers and less productivity.