health

William Cash Excerpts

Tuesday 18th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Dr Poulter]

As my hon. Friend is aware, there is a process for scrutinising all decisions and, as I have outlined, if the correct procedure has not been followed, decisions are open to judicial review. To reassure hon. Members, we have accepted, from a medical perspective, the principle that fewer units deliver better care for patients and better surgical results for children. Therefore, this review is not about closing units in any particular hospital, but about specialist surgical services. Day-to-day care of patients and paediatric care for those who have had surgery will continue locally even after this review, and that should reassure local patients.

[Mr William Cash (Stone) (Con)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Dr Poulter]

I will give way again, but I am mindful of the time.

[Mr Cash]

On that point, and in the light of the way this legislation has been redressed over the past year and half, does the Minister accept that before the legislation was introduced, and now, ultimate responsibility and accountability for all matters affecting the health service turned on the duties, accountability and statutory responsibilities of the Secretary of State? That is why the Minister is now at the Dispatch Box, just as the Secretary of State would be in other circumstances.

[Dr Poulter]

I accept that the Secretary of State has always had responsibility for the health service, and that was implicitly made clear in the Health and Social Care Act 2012. It is, however, important that we no longer have a system in this country that micro-manages the delivery of local health care services. We must listen to local doctors and nurses, and put them in charge of the configuration of local services because they are often the best advocates for the needs of local patients. Reconfiguring local services should be led—as per the four tests I outlined previously—on good clinical grounds where there is a clinical case for reconfiguration and where local communities have been consulted. That is something we should listen to and we must move away from the Whitehall micro-management of local health care delivery.