NHS: Reorganisation

Lord Patel Excerpts

Thursday 24th March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, we are beginning to reorganise the system. Under current rules, we are enabled to do so. I understand my noble friend’s particular point about the claw-back arrangements but there is perhaps a countervailing argument over what is fair and unfair in redundancy arrangements. In that sense, one cannot push the issue too far. Having said that, we are on track with the retirement scheme. We are seeing a deliberate and carefully managed process of reducing staff numbers at primary care trust level, leading up to the clustering of primary care trusts, which I am sure my noble friend knows about.

[Lord Patel]

My Lords, can the Minister say—

[Baroness Jolly]

My Lords—

[Noble Lords]

This side!

[Lord Patel]

Can the Minister say whether the Government have made any assessment of the transaction costs of the reform?

[Earl Howe]

I can tell the noble Lord, as I did before this Question began, that the transaction costs are not in my brief. However, we are in a different world now from the one we were in 10 or 15 years ago. We have a payment-by-results system which is well established. It is important to understand that the modernisation programme is not about competitive tendering, because it will streamline the whole process whereby providers to the health service will be enabled to offer their services to patients. It is not dependent on competitive tendering and the transaction costs should reflect that beneficially.