(9 years, 4 months ago)
Commons ChamberThere are no plans to charge people who have missed appointments. That is precisely the sort of scaremongering that the British public rejected at the last election. The right hon. Gentleman put the NHS on the ballot paper, and the country voted Conservative; he might want to think about the lessons from that. Missed appointments cost the NHS £1 billion a year. We want that money to be spent on doctors and nurses. Labour spent billions on wasted IT contracts and the private finance initiative, and did not spend enough on front-line staff. We are putting that right.
3. What steps he is taking to ensure that clinical commissioning groups routinely fund cough-assist machines for people with muscle-wasting conditions when a clinical need has been identified.