I shall deal in turn with the issues of PCTs, SHAs and the ambulance service, but I want to begin with a few general comments. We in this House agree that we must ensure that NHS funding is used most effectively on the front line, but we must also accept that we cannot preserve the service in aspic.
At the risk of mixing my metaphors and similes, we might compare the NHS with a supertanker. A vessel that is so big can turn only very slowly, and in the same way change in the NHS must involve many incremental alterations. I shall offer another illustration: if the NHS were a country, the size of its budget means that it would bear comparison with Poland. It is important that we recognise that the NHS needs to change; the question is how those changes are brought about and implemented. We also need quality management and good administrators in the NHS, and we need to value those support staff. Equally, we need to test every pound that goes into the health service to ensure that we get best value for patients.
The Conservatives devalue some of their arguments by suggesting that everything in the NHS was wonderful before 1997, and that it has all become terrible since then. That is contradicted by the Fenton health centre, which has just been opened in my constituency, and by the Willow Bank surgery, which opened about a year ago in Longton. It is also contradicted by all the additional doctors and nurses that we now have.
NHS Reorganisation
Proceeding contribution from
Robert Flello
(Labour)
in the House of Commons on Tuesday, 7 February 2006.
It occurred during Opposition day on NHS Reorganisation.
Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
442 c829-30 
Session
2005-06
Chamber / Committee
House of Commons chamber
Subjects
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Timestamp
2024-04-21 13:00:08 +0100
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