Oral Answers to Questions

Liz Kendall Excerpts

Tuesday 25th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

The shadow Secretary of State cannot actually criticise what we put forward in the White Paper or the Bill and is resorting to inventing something else and attacking that. Let me tell him that the one thing we will not do with the private sector is rig the market so that private companies get contracts and guaranteed money whether or not they treat patients. We are not going to give them 11% more money than the NHS would get for doing the same work. We will give NHS organisations a proper chance to deliver services for patients.

[Liz Kendall (Leicester West) (Lab)]

Whatever the Secretary of State claims about his reorganisation, a King’s Fund survey showed that more than three quarters of doctors do not believe that it will improve patient care, and even his Department’s impact assessment on the Health and Social Care Bill says that the reorganisation risks distracting staff and making them less focused on patient care.

Will the Health Secretary now confirm that the number of patients waiting more than six weeks for their cancer test has already doubled under this Government, and that routine operations are being cancelled? Will he finally listen to the Royal College of Nursing and the British Medical Association, which have told him that his plans are

“extremely risky and potentially disastrous”

for the NHS and patient care?