Health and Social Care Bill

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. My understanding is that the NHS commissioning board will have a significant monitoring role to ensure that GPs commission services not automatically from themselves but from providers who provide the best outcomes for the patients they are trying to look after. I would like to make one final point to the ministerial team. Information is the key that will drive improvements in the NHS, and that information must be comparable, easily accessible and easily understandable in order to inform patients' decision making processes. It should not just be on the internet. We should not just wait for patients to access information—we have to find ways of taking it to them, particularly those living in socio-economically deprived areas. The Bill is a significant step in the right direction. It preserves the best of the national health service—equality of access—while creating opportunities to improve the provision of health care in the UK, so that it can become among the best in the world, rather than lag behind. Excellence for all should be the goal.