NHS Reorganisation

I want to make a little progress first. The Opposition motion reveals that they have no alternative vision. The Labour party today is empty of ideas, confused and incoherent. It did not have anything to offer the country at the general election, and it has nothing to offer today. I will deal with each of the points made by the right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne, but first I want to say something about what we are doing through the White Paper, and why we are doing it. We should be proud of the fundamental values of the NHS: that it is free at the point of use, and that it is based on need and not on the ability to pay. Nothing that we do will ever undermine those principles; that is the coalition Government's commitment. However, our pride in these values is no excuse for complacency. The demands facing the NHS over the coming decades are many: an increasing and ageing population; continued advances in medicine and technology; and rising expectations on the part of patients and the public. That is why, as we maintain equity in access to services, we will also pursue excellence in health care. We will do so because despite the great improvements in the NHS in the past—such as in cardiac surgery and cardiology, and, more recently, in stroke care and many cancer services—we have much more still to do. Outcomes for patients in this country are too often poor in comparison with outcomes in other countries: someone in this country is twice as likely to die from a heart attack as someone in France; survival rates for cervical, colorectal and breast cancers in this country are among the worst in the OECD; and premature mortality rates from respiratory disease are worse than the EU-15 average. Simply putting more money into the system has not worked, which is why reform is needed.