NHS: GP Salaries
Debate between Lord Reid of Cardowan and Baroness Jolly
Baroness Jolly
My Lords, the Government recognise that GPs work hard but that some patients would like more convenient opening hours. We have invested £50 million in piloting improved access to general practice this year, which will benefit 7.5 million patients. A further £100 million of investment will follow next year, which will mean that even more patients can have access to longer evening and weekend hours.
Lord Reid of Cardowan (Lab)
Will the Minister confirm that the increased remuneration for GPs was part of structural and other changes in the NHS which took hundreds of thousands off the waiting lists, reduced the maximum waiting time from three years to 18 weeks, halved the incidence of hospital acquired infections and increased the efficiency and service in our accident and emergency units to 98% over a decade, and that, if all those beneficial changes have now been reversed, that cannot be placed within the context of doctors’ wages?
Baroness Jolly
Certainly those changes under the last Government are well recorded but GPs wages have been falling every year in real terms since 2005-6. The expenses-to-earnings ratio increased from 62.7 to 63.7 and the additional funding announced at the end of last year will support general practice and out-of-hospital care more widely to improve infrastructure and pilot new ways of working.
Health: Organic Food
Debate between Lord Reid of Cardowan and Baroness Jolly
Lord Reid of Cardowan (Lab)
I confess immediately that I am not a scientist, chemist, agricultural expert or farmer. However, as I understand it, the burden of what the Minister has said is that there is no evidential benefit from organic food as far as human beings and health are concerned. Can we work on the assumption that, whatever the details of it, the money spent by Defra is for environmental and sustainable agricultural reasons, rather than for reasons of health?
Baroness Jolly
That is absolutely right. I spoke earlier about the environmental pluses of organic farming. It is up to the consumer to decide how they spend their money on their fruit and veg. There are many reasons why an individual might wish to choose organic products but nutritional benefit should not be one of them.