NHS Reorganisation

I now wish to make some progress because I am conscious of the time, and I know that many Back Benchers want to participate in the debate. Ninety per cent. of patients’ contact with the NHS is within primary care settings. About 900,000 people a day contact a GP or a practice nurse. The challenge now is to improve primary and community services. That is why last week we published the White Paper, ““Our health, our care, our say””, setting out our plans to do that. It emphasises that good commissioning is essential to improving services for patients. That means that the NHS needs to get better at securing the best possible services, representing good value from a growing range of health care providers. Reforms such as patient choice and payment by results mean that individual decisions to refer and patient choice will in effect drive commissioning. Patients in discussion with their commissions will choose where they want to go for treatment. Payment by results ensures that the money follows the patient to pay for their care. Once established, the payment by results tariff offers the opportunity for adaptation to encourage alternatives to hospital referral.