Oral Answers to Questions

Tim Farron Excerpts

Tuesday 27th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Dr Poulter]

We have already highlighted in earlier answers the fact that under the previous Government health care rationing was far worse on varicose veins, which one of the right hon. Gentleman’s own Back Benchers mentioned, and elsewhere. This Government are very proud of our record whereby 60,000 fewer patients are waiting more than 18 weeks than under the previous Government and 16,000 fewer patients than in May 2010 are waiting longer than a year. Waiting times are coming down, infection rates in hospitals are coming down, and people are getting better care. This Government ended the worst health care rationing scandal of all—the fact that people with cancer were not getting access to the drugs they needed. Now, 23,000 people are getting access to that care. If he could not do anything about rationing, he should at least recognise that this Government have done something and have made a real difference to people’s lives, particularly patients with cancer, by reducing rationing.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

Those of us who live in rural areas such as south Cumbria have faced the rationing of acute services for years—not rationing by price, but rationing by distance. Will the Minister encourage Morecambe Bay, which will undertake its review of the allocation of services in the coming months, to allocate accident and emergency services back to Westmorland general hospital, where they would be closer to the people whose lives they could save?

[Dr Poulter]

As my hon. Friend is aware, from next year the NHS Commissioning Board will have responsibility for commissioning local services and for setting the funding formula. I would be happy to raise his issue with the board, because it is true that, historically, the capitation formula has not recognised the fact that there are a lot of older people in rural areas and further distances to travel. The previous Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr Lansley), took steps towards reviewing the formula and I assure my hon. Friend that the Government will be looking into it further.