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Health Care in London

The hon. Gentleman makes absolutely the right point. It would be scandalous if any of the related papers were kept secret until after the general election. There almost seems to be a conspiracy of silence to prevent the public from knowing the real facts until after the general election. The process seems designed to destroy confidence and to engender suspicion about motives. We know that the real pressure comes from the financial crisis faced by the NHS, which is in large part due to the way in which money has been spent by this Government within the NHS. I shall come on to one of the particular reasons for that—PFI, which was mentioned a while ago by an hon. Member on the Conservative Back-Benches. An opinion piece in The Guardian on 3 March stated that""proper discussion about the future of vital public services is being stifled because profound changes—in London and beyond—are accompanied by secrecy, obfuscation, double-speak and concealment by the NHS at almost every turn."" There is a culture of fear—people fear the consequences of speaking out. That Labour-voting commissioner from north-west London writes that he wants his e-mail kept anonymous. He does not give his name, because he fears that his job would be threatened""were I to be linked to sending you this material"." What an indictment it is of the NHS under this Government that people fear for their jobs if they speak out and reveal to the public what is going on behind closed doors. He says in that e-mail that there has been produced in north-west London""a long list of fantastical figures about the number of outpatient appointments, emergency admissions and diagnostics to be moved out of hospital and into 'polysystems' in the community. The idea is to move 55 per cent. of everything, even though the infrastructure and ability of the NHS outside the hospital to cope is not credible."" He goes on to talk about how the acute commissioning vehicle has emasculated the primary care trusts—the bodies that are supposed to be there under this Government to determine health care for their local communities. They have been emasculated by this new body that is imposing its decisions on the local area. Clinicians have been kept in the dark and feel completely excluded from the process in many cases.