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Access to NHS Services

This has been a mainly good debate and many important points have been raised. I acknowledge the warm welcome that Members on both sides have given to the new team on the Government Front Bench. The health service we inherited in 1997 was starved of essential funding. Every winter heralded a new crisis, cancer death rates were going up, waiting lists topped 1 million, there was a shortage of beds, patients were left on trolleys in A and E for hours and half of all hospital buildings had been built before 1948. Ten years on, the position is transformed thanks to greater investment, difficult but necessary system reform and, above all, the tremendous work of those who work in the NHS. As recent successive independent surveys have shown, patient appreciation of the health service is at record levels. The Healthcare Commission survey, in line with previous years, showed that more than nine in 10 people rate their care as excellent, very good or good. The recent Commonwealth Fund survey of international rankings looked at the health services of the UK, Australia, Canada, Germany, New Zealand and the United States against health system indicators of quality, equity, healthy lives, access and efficiency and it placed the UK first, an increase of two places since 2006.