NHS Reorganisation Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department of Health and Social Care
Joan Ruddock
Main Page: Joan Ruddock (Labour - Lewisham, Deptford)Department Debates - View all Joan Ruddock's debates with the Department of Health and Social Care
(13 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Lansley
In a moment.
Only yesterday, the Public Accounts Committee said that over the past 10 years the productivity of NHS hospitals had been in almost continuous decline, and that taxpayers were getting less for every pound invested in the NHS: Labour, leaving us to sort out the mess. The truth of the matter is that the NHS needs to change to meet the rising demand for and cost of health care.
The changes that the NHS needs are simple: more investment, less waste, power to front-line doctors, nurses and health professionals, and to put patients first.
Mr Lansley
No. I will give way to the right hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Joan Ruddock) first.
Joan Ruddock
The right hon. Gentleman speaks of the respect that patients have for their GPs, and that is certainly the case in my area, where GPs do an incredibly difficult and demanding job. How does he think, therefore, patients and the doctors themselves regard the pressure being put on them to become managers, to adopt skills that they do not have, and being forced to do it, when they say to me that the plans are untested, potentially divisive and will take them away from their patients? Those things are actually happening. Does he think that it is ethical to pay GPs £300,000 to cut services to patients?
Mr Lansley
The Royal College of General Practitioners has said that it believes that there should be more clinician-led commissioning, and yesterday the British Medical Association reasserted its view that general practice-led commissioning is the right way forward. The Labour Government set up practice-based commissioning but, as the shadow Health Minister, the hon. Member for Leicester West (Liz Kendall), said, GPs were not given the power, responsibility and opportunity to do it. I am afraid that the right hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford is speaking against the evidence and the experience of GPs all over the country.