---

NHS Resources

Thank you very much, Mr. Jones, and I am very grateful to the Minister for turning up two minutes early, which means I might be able to go on for 17 minutes, but we will see how it goes. I am delighted to see the Minister in the Chamber. He and I are quite used to swapping reminiscences and points of view with other Members in a packed Westminster Hall, but I appreciate a one-to-one with him. It is absolutely great. As the Minister knows, I am usually trying to help the NHS and not trying to make any party political points at all. As he also knows—well, he probably does not know—I qualified as a doctor 50 years ago, so the NHS has been part of my life for a very long time and I am still absolutely dedicated to it. The Order Paper never gives the full title of a debate, but the full title of this debate was, "Suggestions for better use of resources in the NHS". I am really returning to a recurrent theme of mine. With increasing longevity, the greater scope of possible treatment and the fact that, although the Government have poured lots of extra money into the NHS, we are now coming to the stage of limited resources, we cannot expect the bonanza of money in the NHS to go on increasing, so we have to push for maximum efficiency and the minimisation of waste in the NHS. When addressing his constituents, in 1868, Disraeli said:""There can be no economy where there is no efficiency."" That absolutely stands today, and the first issue that I want to consider is what the Government are doing in that regard already. I hope to get a bit of an update on that from the Minister. Then I shall suggest some things that the Government should consider doing, but I do not expect to get answers on them today, because I have not warned the Minister about any of them. What are the Government doing to eliminate waste and inefficiency? I am sure that you saw huge advertisements in the Sunday papers over the weekend, Mr. Jones, to mark European antibiotic awareness day, which was a tremendous step. One advertisement said:""If a cold is making you feel under the weather, antibiotics aren’t going to help"." It is terribly sad that we have to tell people that, but I sympathise with the poor GPs, because time and again it might be easier simply to give out an antibiotic than to spend time explaining that it will not do one a power of good. That advertisement was something, and it was good.