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Access to NHS Services

It was not worth giving way. I thought that the hon. Gentleman was going to tell us about the exciting developments in his constituency, but instead we heard the same mantra that the investment that has been put into the health service has not been matched by results. It is my genuine belief that, without a change of Government in 1997, the NHS would have weakened and withered with each subsequent year of neglect. That would have strengthened the position of those who oppose the whole concept of a national health service that is free to all and based on clinical need rather than the ability to pay. The mantra of such people is that no matter how much investment is put into the NHS, it will never work because of the principal basis on which it was founded.