NHS Reorganisation

Nick de Bois Excerpts

Wednesday 17th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[John Healey]

In a way it does not matter whether I agree; it matters much more that the National Rheumatoid Arthritis Society and many other patients groups are deeply concerned about this.

It is not just patients groups but professional bodies and NHS experts who are worried. Even the GPs are not convinced, and they are meant to be the winners in all this. They are meant to be the ones planning, buying and managing the rest of the NHS’s services. A King’s Fund survey carried out last month found that fewer than one in four GPs believe that the plans will improve patient care, and only one in five believe that the NHS will be able to maintain the focus on efficiency at the same time.

[Nick de Bois (Enfield North) (Con)]

In my constituency, we have been holding one-to-one dialogues with GPs, particularly about the White Paper, and I can tell the right hon. Gentleman with total confidence that well over 65% of the GPs I have met—it is only 65% because I have not managed to meet all of them—have endorsed the removal of the PCTs, from which they felt remote and disjointed and from which they felt they were getting poor value for money.

[John Healey]

If two thirds of the GPs the hon. Gentleman met are in favour, one third are obviously not convinced, but they will be forced to do this anyway. That is part of the problem, and I will come to that in a moment.

It is no wonder that the head of the NHS Confederation, the body that is there for those who run the NHS, told the Health Committee last month that

“there is a very, very significant risk associated with the project”.

Even the Secretary of State’s right-wing supporters in the Civitas think-tank tell him that he is wrong. They have said:

“The NHS is facing the most difficult…time in its history. Now is not the time for ripping up internal structures yet again on scant evidence”.