NHS Reorganisation

I would love to have the data to hand to be able to give the answer to that question. The hon. Lady’s comment has no doubt been heard by my hon. Friend the Minister. I am conscious of the ever-ticking clock. Before I move on to the ambulance service, however, I want to refer to a telling point that was made to me about three years ago by someone who was at that time a manager in the health service, and that relates to my observation about the comments of Opposition Members that everything was rosy up to 1997. That point was that NHS managers had for so many years been used to try to save money, cut budgets and reduce funding, that they did not necessarily have the expertise to apply the huge amount of money that they were suddenly given. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will return to that point in her wind-up. Many comments have been made about the ambulance service. The hon. Member for Lichfield (Michael Fabricant) and some of my hon. Friends have rehearsed the arguments in relation to Staffordshire very well. A couple of points have not been mentioned. As everyone knows, the M6, which has perhaps more cars on it than any other road in western Europe, gets very congested from time to time, notably on Friday evenings. It only takes a fairly small incident for the motorway to become closed. Frequently, when it is closed or subject to huge delays, some drivers using that motorway are taken ill. One of the things that the Staffordshire ambulance service has been used for in the past—which, as I understand it, it would not be able to do under the proposals—is ferrying off the motorway people who have been taken ill or diabetics who must eat at certain times of the day and suddenly find themselves stuck in traffic for three or four hours and not able to eat. They can be moved off the motorway to a place where they can receive suitable treatment or be treated at the roadside. That is an important role, which shows the innovation and dedication in Staffordshire ambulance service. Comments were also made about fast access and survival rates. In certain parts of the country—I will not name them, for fear of upsetting residents of those areas—if someone is taken ill with something like a heart attack, he or she has no chance of survival because the ambulance services there do not bring anybody to hospital alive in such circumstances, whereas in Staffordshire one has a very good chance of survival.