NHS (Public Satisfaction)
Debate between Simon Burns and Lord Cryer(13 years, 7 months ago)
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John Cryer
I agree with my hon. Friend. I have had exactly the same experience. We were both elected in 1997, and when I became an MP, I regularly had people come to see me with orthopaedic problems who had been waiting for operations for two to two and a half years. Some of them were in serious pain and unable to work. In the past few years, the complaints I have been hearing are that people have not had an operation for four or six months. It is a completely different world.
The Minister of State, Department of Health (Mr Simon Burns)
May I put the hon. Gentleman out of his misery before we start the debate on a false premise? He is absolutely right: the previous Government did not publish the 2008, 2009 and 2010 surveys, to which he refers. It may be of interest to him to know that the 2010 report was published following a written answer by the Minister of State, Department of Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Burstow) in December 2010, and placed in the Library.
John Cryer
If the Minister will calm down a bit, I will come to that. After the Secretary of State appeared before the Health Committee, it emerged that data until 2010 had been placed in the Library, and the results until December 2009 are on the Ipsos MORI website. I was granted this debate on 24 March and the data were released the following day, Friday 25 March, on the Department of Health website. Previously, the data had not been on the Department’s website. It might be a coincidence, but it struck me that that was a fairly good time to bury good news: it was the day before 500,000 people tramped through central London on the TUC march in opposition to the cuts. The fact that the data were not initially released is unsurprising, given that polling showed a 72% satisfaction rating. Ipsos MORI concluded in the report:
“This level of satisfaction has now been recorded for over a year…suggesting that there has been a…positive shift in the public’s perceptions of the NHS. Pride in the NHS also continues to climb and is at its highest recorded level”.
Pride in the NHS is at its highest ever recorded level—an interesting statistic. We might hear a comment from the Minister about that.