Oral Answers to Questions

Jamie Reed Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Burns]

A deeply flawed survey is right in one respect: under the current Government, 14,000 administrative and managerial posts have gone from the health service, releasing money for front-line services.

[Mr Jamie Reed (Copeland) (Lab)]

The reality is, of course, that the report from the Royal College of Nursing revealed that thousands of front-line nursing posts are being cut, and that last night a leaked report on commissioning revealed further bad news for front-line staff: that the Government plan to privatise large swathes of the NHS, making GPs “bit-part players”. Does it remain Government policy to promote, in the words of the report,

“a strong and vibrant market”

in the NHS, and, in the words of the Prime Minister, to

“drive the NHS to be a fantastic business”?

[Mr Burns]

The report that was published at the weekend is deeply flawed. It is outrageous for an organisation to seek to scare people for the sake of cheap publicity. That report is as flawed as the report that was published a year ago. Far from there being the 50,000 cuts to which it referred, since May 2010 the number of doctors has risen by 3,500, the number of consultants by 1,600, the number of registrars by 2,100 and the number of qualified radiography staff by 549. Moreover, the number of managers and administration officers has fallen by 14,000 to release money for improved health care.