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NHS (Co-operation/Competition)

I congratulate the hon. Member for Wyre Forest (Dr. Taylor) on securing the debate. I hope that he will forgive me, but I was looking forward to a more philosophical debate on competition and co-operation in the NHS before I was pre-warned that he was going to talk about the more technical issue of the competition and co-operation panel, which I will mention later. I recognise the good work of NHS staff throughout the hon. Gentleman's constituency. They are delivering a better health care service than ever, which benefits his and other hon. Members' constituents. Perhaps more than anyone else in the House, he has demonstrated his commitment to the NHS in 50 years of dedicated service. We should all be grateful that he continues his dedication in a different way in the House. When this Government came to power, we found the NHS on its knees. It was chronically underfunded, woefully understaffed and provided a service to patients that was unacceptable in too many cases. The immediate and urgent answer was sustained and substantial investment combined with a strong direction from the centre. Having resuscitated the patient in the years after 1997 and addressed some of the pressing capacity problems that we faced, the next challenge was to build a health service that was more responsive to the public's modern-day expectations. That is where choice and competition come in. The NHS was built on two enduring principles: that health care available to all is free at the point of need and funded by the taxpayer. Those principles have not changed over 60 years, and they will not change as long as we have a Labour Government. However, in every walk of life, the current generation is used to exercising informed choices. People are no longer prepared to accept gratefully from the state services over which they have no control and little say. The medical evidence suggests that engaged patients are healthier patients. Being involved in decisions made about one's health care improves results and speeds recovery. However, as the hon. Gentleman acknowledged, there is another important reason for providing choice and an element of competition in the NHS: it helps to drive up standards. General practitioners or hospitals that know they will lose money if their patients choose to go elsewhere face a strong incentive to improve the quality of the services that they provide. The diverging health policies of the constituent parts of the United Kingdom amount to an interesting experiment. Scotland and Wales have not followed England down the path of choice and competition. In fact, in many ways, their health policies are going in the opposite direction. It might be too soon to say with certainty which approach is better, but if we look at performance against amounts of money invested and public satisfaction levels, we will see that England is doing far better. We have considerably shorter waiting times and better GP access.