NHS Reorganisation

The hon. Lady is right, and there is plenty of scope to do that. We recognised that, and we had plans to take out many of the managerial costs. I will come to that later, but it is hard to understand how creating three or even four times as many GP consortiums doing the same job as primary care trusts is likely to reduce rather than increase bureaucracy in the NHS. My right hon. Friend the Member for Leigh says that in Wigan there is one PCT, but it is set to have six GP consortiums. The same job will be done six times over in the same area. How is that a cut, or an improvement in the bureaucratic overheads and costs of the NHS? In the spending review, the NHS is set for the biggest efficiency squeeze ever. On 12 October, the NHS chief executive, David Nicholson, told the Health Committee:"““It is huge. You don't need me to tell you that it has never been done before in the NHS context and we don't think, when you look at health systems across the world, that anyone has quite done it on this scale before.””" Money is tight, and something must happen, but that can be done by building on Labour's big improvements in the NHS over the last decade. It will be tough, but I will back the Government, as long as all savings are reused for better front-line services to patients.