Health and Social Care Bill (Programme) (No. 3)

Does my hon. Friend accept that if we want to look at how best to increase the number of people who are treated, the best thing to do is go to the people who do the treatment? When I was Health Secretary, the NHS was doing 160,000 cataract operations a year. Following discussions with the experts, some changes were made—no structural changes—and in the last year for which figures are available the NHS did 346,000 cataract operations a year. The private sector's contribution averaged 6,000 a year.