Healey attacks NHS reforms

8th March 2011

The coalition's reforms to the NHS are "making things worse not better" for patients, the shadow health secretary has said.

John Healey called on the health secretary to provide reassurance to those patients who were being denied access to treatment.

During health questions in the Commons, he said Andrew Lansley was a "man in denial", as patients failed to receive the operations they needed, with waiting times lengthened under the coalition.

He said: "You are a man in denial. What the government is doing to the NHS is making things worse not better for patients.

"You are axing Labour's patient guarantee on waiting times, you are breaking the promise of a real rise in NHS funding, you are wasting £2bn on the government's top down reorganisation and you are forcing market competition into all parts of the NHS.

"Don't you see that the NHS is rapidly becoming the prime minister's biggest broken promise?"

In response Lansley said that primary care trusts will receive on average an extra 3 per cent in funding next year.

The health secretary said the claims were "simply not true" and that waiting times were "stable".

He added: "We are delivering improved quality of care."

Shadow health minister Emily Thornberry warned that the introduction of GP consortia would not protect hospitals from closure.

The Labour MP highlighted leaked information from the Foundation Trust Network, asking how many hospitals would be closed.

She said: "Which faceless bureaucrats will be closing hospitals and what if any powers will local authorities have to stop them?"

Health secretary Andrew Lansley said that efficiencies were going to have to be made, but a better use of resources could help hospitals remain open.

He explained that hospitals and PCTs were in discussions over budgets ahead of the new financial year.

The health secretary told MPs: "The necessity to deliver efficiency savings and redesigning clinical services will mean that hospitals need to deliver 4 per cent efficiency gains year on year, right across the NHS.

"Things need to change. It does not threaten the future of hospitals - it incentivises for improving design of clinical services, improving care for patients' treatments and more accessible care for patients in the right place, at the right time."

Shadow health minister Diane Abbott said that things will only get worse for public health because local authorities were already seeing cuts in public expenditure.

She noted the difficulty of "effectively ring fencing" the new funds.

Lansley said he did not think it would be difficult to ring fence the budgets.

He said the government was working with the NHS and local authorities in delivering greater care.

The health secretary highlighted the £162m extra than had been provided for the purpose of delivering improvements.

Lib Dem MP Annette Brooke called for assurances that sexual health services would be protected following changes to public health.

Lansley said there were plans in the Health and Social Care Bill to do this.

Labour's Michael Connarty asked about the department's plans to reduced the the incidence of tuberculosis, with 61 per cent of victims in London failing to complete the treatment.

The Linlithgow and East Falkirk MP said: TB in the UK is only behind the level in Spain and Portugal - there were over 400,000 cases in the EU in 2009."

In response, health minister Anne Milton said: "We expect NHS organisations and their partners to ensure early detection, treatment completion and coordinated action to prevent and control TB."

The minister told MPs that the department and NICE had published supporting guidance, and continues to support the charity TB Alert to raise public and professional awareness.

She added: "The Home Office is reviewing the effectiveness of screening and running a pilot of TB screening pre-entry in areas of high instances."

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