Patient Choice

Louie French Excerpts

Thursday 25th May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Steve Barclay]

I can confirm that, from October, we will roll this out to those who have been waiting more than 40 weeks, and we will look to bring down that threshold over time. We will focus first on the longest waits.

[Mr Louie French (Old Bexley and Sidcup) (Con)]

I share my right hon. Friend’s desire to increase patient choice and reduce waiting times. One way to do that in south-east London is to expand further the number of services at Queen Mary’s Hospital, Sidcup, which is an excellent modern hospital with the capacity to expand services. However, there needs to be a will within NHS leadership, especially within the new integrated care boards, to get on with doing so, particularly for community diagnostics. Will my right hon. Friend please agree to meet me to discuss further how we can improve patient choice and patient outcomes in Bexley?

[Steve Barclay]

I share my hon. Friend’s desire. As part of this announcement, payment will follow patients to incentivise trusts to take on more, which further underpins patient choice. We are actively engaged on accelerating the diagnostic centres and, as a result of ministerial intervention, we have speeded up the diagnostic centre programme. I look forward to updating the House on how many additional scans and tests will now be done this year, as opposed to the original plan for those tests to be done in 2024. I am very happy to have further discussion with him.