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General Practice (Northamptonshire)

I shall make some progress and then give way to the hon. Gentleman. Major progress has been made in Northamptonshire. All Northamptonshire patients are able to see a GP or a nurse for a routine appointment within 48 hours, Northamptonshire practices achieved an average of 960.1 quality points out of a possible 1,000 in the quality and outcomes framework, and 74 per cent. of the population aged 65 and above have been vaccinated for influenza. Across Northamptonshire, all practices have open lists and are accepting new patients—the hon. Gentleman disputes that—and several practices employ highly skilled nurse practitioners who provide a range of services from the management of long-term conditions to diagnosis and treatment of minor ailments. The performance of the health service in the hon. Gentleman's constituency has advanced massively in the past 10 years. He will not like my saying this, but a significant reason for that is the near tripling of investment in the NHS that the Government chose to make. The NHS had been starved of resources in the previous 20 years, which meant that the baseline of NHS funding was a scandal when compared with other countries around the world. The hon. Gentleman is right about growth. The Northamptonshire PCT received growth area adjustment in its 2006-08 revenue allocation to take account of the demographic issues that he properly raised.