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NHS White Paper

The White Paper makes it clear that the NHS commissioning board will be required to allocate resources across the NHS in England on the basis, as far as possible, of seeking to secure equivalent access to NHS services. That will clearly be relative to the prospective burden of disease. In tackling health inequalities, the right hon. Lady will know that we need separately to allocate resources to local health improvement plans, which will be led through local authorities, and which will enable them to create local public health strategies to secure improvements in health outcomes and to reduce health inequalities.