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Health Bill [HL]

The spirit has moved me to respond after that speech by the noble Lord, Lord Warner. He has enunciated in a couple of minutes precisely what is wrong with the National Health Service, if anything is wrong with it. People I meet and people I know who work in the health service think that it is a very good service, but that it is overly bureaucratised. So many bodies, committees, oversights, reviews, reports, audits and quangos—do not forget them—all chip in and interfere with what people are doing. I welcome what the noble Lord has just said. I declare an interest. I no longer work in the health service, but my husband, who I live with, still does, despite retiring 18 months ago at the age of 65. As there is a shortage in his specialty, he has gone back to work. If he were here he would say, ““A plague on all your bureaucracy, just let us get on with the job””.