Oral Answers to Questions

John Healey Excerpts

Tuesday 12th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

Yes, I do indeed welcome that. We all know that last year, this year and in future years, increases in the NHS budget in real terms will not be the kind of real-terms increases we saw in the past, but they will be real-terms increases. What we are already seeing in the NHS—we saw it last year—is that with a 2.2% increase in cash spending, there is none the less an ability to sustain, and in many respects improve, performance.

[John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)]

In spite of the spin, the truth is that the Prime Minister’s personal promise to give the NHS a real rise in funding is being broken. It is not just how much that counts; it is how well the money is spent. Today it is one year to the very day since the Health Secretary launched the Government’s plans to “liberate” the NHS. He told the House:

“we will phase out the top-down management hierarchy”—[Official Report, 12 July 2010; Vol. 513, c. 663.]

He said that he would reduce “the number and cost” of NHS-related quangos, so why is he setting up the new national commissioning board, set to employ 3,500 people, when even its chief executive says that it

“could become the greatest quango in the sky we have seen”.

Why is the right hon. Gentleman setting up more than 500 public bodies in the NHS when 161 do the job now, and why are the Government wasting precious NHS funding on the biggest reorganisation in history, when it could and should be spent on patient care?

[Mr Lansley]

Since the election we have reduced the number of managers in the NHS by more than 4,000 and increased the number of doctors by more than 2,000. The NHS commissioning board—I did not hear from the right hon. Gentleman whether he supports it—is part of our strategy to give the NHS not only local clinical leadership but national leadership through it. The functions covered by the board are currently undertaken by something approaching 8,000 staff; the number delivering those functions in future will go down to 3,500 staff, so the reduction in administration will be dramatic.

[John Healey]

We had plans to reduce bureaucracy, which were published, and we also said that the Government should keep Labour’s waiting time guarantees for patients, which the Health Secretary told the House a year ago today were “unjustified” targets, which he would remove. The Prime Minister has now promised to keep waiting times low, but after one wasted year of NHS reorganisation by the right hon. Gentleman’s Government, an extra 25,000 patients a month are waiting more than four hours in accident and emergency departments, an extra 12,000 patients a month are waiting more than six weeks for tests, and an extra 2,300 patients a month are waiting more than 18 weeks to get into hospital for the treatment they need. The NHS deputy chief executive has called the rise in long waiting times this year “unacceptable”. Does the Health Secretary agree?

[Mr Lansley]

As we said in the NHS constitution, we do not intend patients to be waiting for more than 18 weeks. [Hon. Members: “They are!”] The April figures show that we met the operational standard, which is that more than 90% of admitted patients and more than 95% of non-admitted patients should be treated within 18 weeks. The right hon. Gentleman’s analysis of waiting times did not include the fact that the average time for which patients waited for treatment in April was 7.7 weeks, down from 8.4 weeks in May 2010. The average time for which patients wait is being reduced.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister of State, Department of Health (Mr Simon Burns)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, because she has been campaigning on this issue for more than a year, and rightly so. Work is being done on the whole issue of PFI and the NHS to ensure value for money. Given her concerns, I would be more than happy to meet to discuss this particular case.

[John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)]

I want to say to the Health Secretary directly that it is a disgrace how he and his Ministers have ducked responsibility for reassuring more than 30,000 elderly and vulnerable residents whose homes may be at risk because of the financial crisis at Southern Cross. Today’s urgent question is the second time in a month that this House has had to drag Ministers to Parliament to explain what is going on. Southern Cross is set to close down completely by October. Will the Secretary of State give a commitment this afternoon to the residents of Southern Cross, their families and 40,000 staff that Ministers will in future show leadership and make public statements to this House?

[The Minister of State, Department of Health (Paul Burstow)]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his question. He will of course know that when the first urgent question was asked, the Government had already provided a written ministerial statement setting out these matters in great detail, and we are happy to answer the questions that hon. Members will want to put in the urgent question later on. We have also said throughout that we do not help the welfare or interests of residents by an ongoing running commentary on these matters.