NHS Reorganisation

Gordon Birtwistle Excerpts

Wednesday 17th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Paul Blomfield]

I certainly would. To cut the tariff from 78 to 25% is the most outrageous proposal on health care to have come from this Government.

When questioned on this issue—this is extraordinary—a spokeswoman from the Department of Health said, very casually,

“less than 10 hospitals are likely to be affected significantly by these changes and the tariff is not their only source of income.”

We are talking about 10 of the leading hospitals that care for our children. Let us be clear: the Sheffield Children’s NHS Foundation Trust has estimated that the change could cut its budget by as much as £4.9 million. That is a reduction of almost 10% in its total funding. It has said that that

“would have a serious impact on the hospital finances and ability to deliver some services.”

[Gordon Birtwistle (Burnley) (LD)]

I am very pleased that the hon. Gentleman has an excellent hospital in his constituency. Will he advise me why the Labour party set in train the closure of Burnley’s children’s ward when it was in power, leaving an area of Burnley, Pendle and Rossendale and more than 250,000 people without a children’s ward, never mind a children’s hospital?

[Paul Blomfield]

I can certainly talk at length about the enormous investment that we made in our hospitals and health services and about the tremendous difference that that made to patients and to reducing the waiting lists that we inherited in 1997. However, I want to make the point about the impact on Sheffield children’s hospital. As the hospital said, the change will have a serious impact on its ability to deliver services that provide critical interventions for those whom we should be protecting most—our children. If the Government are prepared to attack these budgets in such a way, what will the commitment to guarantee health spending increases in real terms in each year of this Parliament be other than another broken promise?