---

NHS White Paper

I wonder whether the hon. Lady has met doctors in Devon. I have been to their local medical committee conference and discussed these issues with them. They are keen to go. If there was any difficulty, it was that at least one Plymouth GP had very high referral rates. I do not think he had ever checked those rates with his colleagues. It was interesting to hear them talk to one another. It became perfectly obvious that peer review—that sense of working collectively to manage services in an area—is going to hold GPs to account very effectively within consortiums as well. [Interruption.] The hon. Lady and all her colleagues completely underestimate the capacity of general practitioners, who are responsible for the overwhelming majority of patient contact in the NHS, not only to take on the responsibility of deciding whether they should incur the expenditure for the referrals they make but to have a say in designing those services.