NHS Reorganisation

Debate between John Healey and Rosie Cooper

Wednesday 17th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[John Healey]

Part of the problem is that there is so little detail in the White Paper that we simply cannot see how the bodies taking big decisions about taxpayers’ money will be accountable to the public. I lost count of the number of times during the last Government when Health Ministers came to this House and to Westminster Hall and had meetings with Members in order to respond to and sort out the problems that their constituents were experiencing with NHS services.

What the Secretary of State says he wants from the White Paper plan is to put patients first, to improve health care outcomes, to cut bureaucracy and to improve efficiency. These are “motherhood and apple pie” aims. We can support his aims, but we cannot support the action he is taking or the breakneck speed with which he is forcing these changes on the NHS. He wants shadow GP consortiums to be in place by April, and he will remove primary care trusts entirely two years after that. What he is doing is rushed and reckless. Almost every respondent to the White Paper has warned of the risks and said, “Slow down.”

[Rosie Cooper (West Lancashire) (Lab)]

Is my right hon. Friend aware that yesterday the Health Committee was told by health service organisations that some London PCTs would close by March 2011? Is anything happening in that regard? We know that there was a suggestion that PCTs would close in 2012, but we heard for the first time yesterday that they might close in 2011.

[John Healey]

I am very concerned if those plans are being speeded up rather than slowed down, because that would be entirely contrary to the view that has been consistently expressed by patients groups, experts in the NHS and professional bodies in response to the consultation on the White Paper. “Too far, too fast,” says the King’s Fund. According to the NHS Confederation:

“It will be exceptionally difficult to deliver major structural change and make £20 billion of efficiency savings at the same time.”

The Alzheimer’s Society says:

“The pace of structural change has the potential to undermine the progress made in services for people with dementia and their families, unless handled carefully”.

Almost every other group representing patients says the same. Even the chief executive of the NHS has written to the Secretary of State saying:

“Implementing the White Paper will require us to strike the right balance between developing early momentum for change and allowing enough time to properly test the new arrangements. Getting this balance right will be critical to maintaining quality and safety”.