NHS (60th Anniversary)

Labour Members should listen to my right hon. Friend because attachment to the NHS is often expressed through support for one's local health service. It should be no surprise that, as I know from my visit to my right hon. Friend's constituency, many thousands of local people have signed a petition to maintain services at their local hospital. Instead of carping, Labour Members would be well advised to acknowledge that that is true not only in Bridlington but in many places throughout the country. People are signing petitions not in contravention of medical evidence, but with clinicians' support and on the basis of evidence for the desirability of maintaining care closer to home. Labour Ministers have adopted that policy, which my former right hon. Friend, Virginia Bottomley, began. She started the process of providing care closer to home, and that care is being lost too often under a Labour Government.