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NHS: White Paper

We are the Opposition, and the only Opposition here. I have asked five or six questions so far and I have more. That leads us to look at the bureaucracy involved in the proposals. The White Paper has managed to unite progressive views in opposition to it with the unlikely figure of Melanie Phillips of the Daily Mail. She wrote: ""Oh dear. The last thing that's needed right now is yet another massive reorganisation, which may well incur even greater costs … it could mean yet more paperwork - and that GPs would be likely to demand more money for the additional responsibilities"." Well, quite. In my experience, PCTs are staffed with decent, hard-working public servants who care greatly about the NHS and its patients. How does the Minister think that they felt when they read the quote from a senior Department of Health source—I apologise to the House for the language—who anonymously briefed the Health Service Journal this week, and said: ""PCTs are screwed. If you’ve got shares in PCTs I think you should sell"." Is that any way to treat staff who have served the NHS loyally? What does the Minister think about bureaucracy. The Government may find that what they think of as bureaucracy is the system for accounting for the expenditure of public money. Can the Minister tell me precisely how the replacement of 130 PCTs by more than 500 GP practices and consortia will reduce bureaucracy and paperwork? The White Paper represents a roll of the dice that puts the NHS at risk in a giant political experiment with no consultation, no piloting and no evidence. The sadness is that the Government are taking an £80 billion gamble with the great success story that our NHS is today. Of course we welcome positive change and benefits for patients. We saved this NHS. At a stroke, this Government are removing public accountability, demoralising NHS staff at a time when we need them. For patients, it opens the door to a new era of postcode prescribing which will vary from street to street. We know that the streets and the patients who will suffer most are those whom we on this side of the House are determined to defend. We will be challenging the proposals along those lines.