NHS Long-Term Plan: Implementation

Peter Bottomley Excerpts

Monday 1st July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

I picked out three of the 20 areas that we are particularly focused on in this implementation framework, one of which is the number of GPs and the broader primary care workforce, because it is not just about GPs but about all those who also support primary care across the board. We have a clear target of 5,000 more GPs, based on the 2015 baseline. We have a record number of GPs in training. Last month, the Minister for Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon (Stephen Hammond), announced the consultation on changes to the pension to remove some of the unintended consequences of pension tax changes for GPs to ensure that we retain our highly trained, highly qualified GPs. There is a whole load of work in the people plan being led by Baroness Dido Harding to make sure that we have the number of GPs that we need and the wider primary care health workforce that is necessary.

[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)]

As my right hon. Friend said, the first Minister of Health was Christopher Addison, then a Liberal, who abolished his position as President of the Local Government Board to succeed himself as the first Minister of Health in 1919, but the first Secretary of State to hold up a White Paper saying “national health service” was the Conservative Sir Henry Willink in 1944. We must give credit to the Labour party for bringing in the health service, agreed by the coalition Government, in 1948, although we have to recognise that Aneurin Bevan decided to nationalise the hospitals and not the GPs, when most people expected it to be the other way round.

In the experience of my wife, who did five years as Minister for Health and Secretary of State for Health, we should be praising all those who support the clinicians—the support workers, administrators and others who help doctors, nurses and other professionals—to look after us at all stages of our lives. We must have the extra money. I am glad that we have gone beyond the Labour party’s ambitious targets to meet our own ambitious targets, and that we can look forward to doing more, because we have to recognise that health will require a greater proportion of our wealth as we live longer and want better services.

[Matt Hancock]

I wholeheartedly agree with the entirety of what my hon. Friend said. It is true that for the majority of its 71-year history—71 this week—the NHS has been run by Conservative Secretaries of State, and the largest cash injections have come from this party. It is a truly national institution that we should all support, and we have to support not only the doctors, who lead many parts of the NHS, and the nurses, but all the health service staff, because it is a true team effort.